Columbia  (Bntoetsitp 

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THE  LIBRARIES 


Bequest  of 

Frederic  Bancroft 

1860-1945 


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WORKS  OF  WILLIAM  ELLIOT  GRIFFIS,  D.D.,  L.H.D. 


JAPAN. 


The  Mikado's  Empire  ;  History  to  1902  and  Personal  Experiences.     (Harpers.) 
Matthew  Calbraith  Perry,  a  Typical  American  Naval  Officer.  (Houghton,  Mifflin 

&Co.) 
Townsend  Harris,  First  American  Envoy  in  Japan.     (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 
Verbeck  of  Japan  ;  A  Citizen  of  No  Country.    A  Story  of  Foundation   Work  In- 
augurated by  Guido  Fridolin  Verbeck.     (Fleming  H.  Revell  Co.) 
A  Maker  of  the  New  Orient.    Samuel   Robbins   Brown,    Pioneer  Educator   in 

China,  America,  and  Japan.     (Fleming  H.  Revell  Co.) 
Japan,  in  History,  Folk-lore,  and  Art.    (Houghton,  Mifflin  &Co.) 
In  the  Mikado's  Service.    A  Story  of  Two  Battle  Summers  in  China.     (W.  A. 

Wilde  Co.) 
Corea,  the  Hermit  Nation.     Part  I.    Ancient,  Medieval  and  Modern  History.  Part 
II.    Social  Life,  Literature,  Art,  Folk-lore,  Proverbs,    Recent  Events,  etc. 
(Charles  Scribner's  Sons.) 

HOLLAND. 

The  American  in  Holland.  Sentimental  Rambles  in  the  Eleven  Provinces  of  the 
Netherlands.     (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 

Brave  Little  Holland,  and  What  She  Taught  Us.     (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 

The  Student's  Motley,  being  "The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic  ",  by  J.  R.  Motley, 
condensed  to  (go  pages  in  six  parts.  Part  VII  :  History  of  the  Dutch  Na- 
tion from  1584  to  1897.     (Harpers.; 

Young  People's  History  of  Holland.     (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 

AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

The  Romance  of  Discovery  ;  A  Thousand  Years  of  Exploration  and  the  Unveiling 
of  Continents.     (W.  A.  Wilde  Co.) 

The  Romance  of  American  Colonization.  How  the  Foundations  of  Our  History 
were  Laid.     (W.  A.  Wilde  Co.) 

The  Romance  of  Conquest.  The  Story  of  American  Expansion  through  Arms 
and  Diplomacy.     (W.  A.  Wilde  Co.) 

The  Pilgrims  in  their  Three  Homes  :  England,  Holland,  and  America.  (Hough- 
ton, Mifflin  &  Co.) 

America  in  the  East.  A  Glance  at  our  History,  Prospects,  Problems,  and  Duties 
in  the  Pacific  Ocean.     (A.  S.  Barnes  Co.) 

The  Pathfinders  of  the  Revolution.  A  Story  of  the  Great  March  into  the  Wilder- 
ness and  Lake  Region  of  New  York  in  1779.     (W.  A.  Wilde  Co.) 

John  Chambers,  and  His  Ministry  in  Philadelphia.  1  vol.  8vo.  Pp.  172,  with 
two  portraits,  index,  etc.  Price,  one  dollar,  postpaid.  (Andrus  &  Church, 
Ithaca,  N.  Y.) 

Sunny  Memories  of  Three  Pastorates,  in  (Schenectady,  Boston,  and  Ithaca),  with 
a  Selection  of  Sermons  and  Essays.  1  vol.  Illust.  Price,  $1.  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 
(Andrus  &  Church.) 

BIBLICAL- 

The  Lily  Among  Thorns.  A  Study  of  the  Biblical  Drama  Entitled,  "  The  Song  of 
Songs."     (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 


SERVANT  OF  CHRIST  AND  MASTER  OF  HEARTS 


AND 


HIS  MINISTRY  IN  PHILADELPHIA 


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JOHN  CHAMBERS. 
About  1873. 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 


Servant  of  Christ  and  Master  of  Hearts 


AND 


HIS  MINISTRY  IN  PHILADELPHIA 


BY 

Rev.  Wm.  Elliot  Griffis,  D.D.,  LH.D. 

Author  of  "THE  MIKADO'S  EMPIRE", "BRAVE  LITTLE  HOLLAND",  "COREA, 

THE  HERMIT  NATION",  "  THE  PILGRIMS  IN  THEIR  THREE 

HOMES",  "VERBECK  OF  JAPAN",  Etc. 


ITHACA,  N,  Y. 

ANDRUS  &  CHURCH 

1903 


ft*  3 


)2~f$-lC- 


COPYRIGHT,  1903 
BY 

andrus  &  Church 

(OCTOBER) 


ANDRUS   &   CHURCH 
ITHACA,  N.  Y. 


JOHN  CHAMBERS'S  FAVORITE  PSALM 


PSALM   CXXXIII 


Behold  how  good  and  how  pleasant  it  is 

For  brethren  to  dwell  together  in  unity  ! 

It  is  like  the  precious  ointment  upon  the  head, 

That  ran  down  upon  the  beard,  even  Aaron's  beard  : 
That  went  down  to  the  skirts  of  his  garments  : 

As  the  dew  of  Hermon, 

And  as  the  dew  that  descended  upon  the  mountains  of  Zion 
For  there  the  Lord  commanded  the  blessing, 
Even  life  forevermore. 


TO 

ALL   MY   FELLOW   ALUMNI 

MEMBERS   OF 

THE   FIRST   INDEPENDENT    CHURCH 

OF    PHILADELPHIA 

WHO   IN   HALLOWED   MEMORY   OF  THE   PAST 

OR 

IN  HOPE  OF  REUNION  IN  THE  ETERNAL  HOME 

GREET 

JOHN   CHAMBERS   AS   THEIR   FATHER    IN   GOD 

I  DEDICATE  THIS  LITTLE  BOOK 


PREFACE. 

John  Chambers  was  one  of  the  first  among  popular 
preachers  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  Philadelphia,  and 
the  pastor  for  fifty  years  of  one  congregation. 

Not  alone  to  delight  those  with  vivid  memories,  who  knew 
loved  and  honored  John  Chambers,  have  I  undertaken  this 
work  of  filial  piety,  but  to  tell  to  young  men  of  to-day  the 
story  of  a  consecrated,  strenuous,  and  successful  life,  the 
secret  of  which  was  self- conquest  and  strength  in  God. 

One  great  purpose  and  benefit  of  biography  is  lost  if  it 
does  not  clearly  reveal  the  growth  of  character,  and,  in  the 
case  of  a  beautiful  and  successful  life,  a  personality  worthy 
of  being  held  up  as  an  example.  It  ought  to  show  also 
self-conquest,  ripening  in  wisdom,  the  philosophic  mind 
that  comes  with  years,  and  the  maturing  and  sweetening  in- 
fluences of  honored  old  age.  It  would  be  of  little  help  to  young 
men,  struggling  against  their  own  besetting  weaknesses 
to  gain  self-mastery  and  attainment  to  true  Christian  man- 
hood, to  picture  only  the  John  Chambers,  as  we  knew 
him, — in  the  serene  evening  of  life,  when  passions  had 
cooled  and  reason  reigned,  and  the  gray  light  of  Heaven's 
morning  had  settled  on  his  head.  I  have  tried  to  show  in 
the  typical  Irishman,  the  cr-eature  of  heredity  and  the  pas- 
sionate patriot,  the  aspiring  Christian  and  the  child  of  God, 
educated  by  unseen  but  potent  influences,  winning  steadfast 
victory  over  sin  and  self,  becoming  king  of  men  and  master 
of  hearts,  leading  a  host  to  triumph  along  the  pathway  to 
Heaven,  able  to  do  all  things  through  Christ  his  helper. 

The  wonderful  character  and  personality  of  John  Cham- 
bers were  not  sudden  creations.  They  were  growths.  He 
himself  believed  that  while  justification  was  instant,   sane- 


PREFACE 

tification  was  gradual.  He  laughed  at  the  man  who  pro- 
fessed never  to  have  made  mistakes.  He  had  always 
patience  with  those  who  slipped  and  fell.  He  showed  us 
how  to  neutralize  the  results  of  our  missteps  and  gain  new 
strength  by  painful  and  humiliating  experiences. 

I  return  my  hearty  thanks  to  one  and  all  of  the  friends, 
fellow  alumni  of  the  old  First  Independent  Church  of  Phila- 
delphia, who  have  aided  me  with  reminiscences,  asking 
pardon  for  omissions  and  indulgence  for  possible  errors. 

w.  E.  G. 

Ithaca,  N.  Y.,  July  20,  1903. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Philadelphia.    The  Historic  Site i 

II.  Ireland.     A  Bonnie  Bairn 7 

III.  Ohio.     Life  in  a  Log  Cabin 14 

IV.  Maryland.    Student  Days  in  Baltimore 19 

V.  Newtown.    Rejected  of  Men 25 

VI.  New  England.     Ordination  at  New  Haven 34 

VII.  Home  and  Church.    Love  and  Work 42 

VIII.  The  War  Horse  of  the  Temperance  Cause 51 

IX.  The  Master  of  Hearts 61 

X.  Boyhood's  Memories  of  the  Old  Church 68 

XL  The  Master  of  Assemblies 81 

XII.  True  Yoke-fellows 94 

XIII.  Church  Life.    Minor  Personalities 105 

XIV.  The  Civil  War in 

XV.  Light  at  Evening  Time  127 

XVI.  Transfer  of  the  Church  to  the  Presbytery ___  135 

XVII.  The  Semi-Centennial  and  Farewell 139 

XVIII.  The  Children  of  the  Mother 144 


CHAPTER  I. 

PHILADELPHIA.     THE  HISTORIC  SITE. 

Throngs  of  people  daily  pass  along  two  of  Philadelphia's 
most  imposing  highways.  Broad  Street  spans  the  entire 
city  from  north  to  south.  Chestnut  Street  is  the  Quaker 
City's  most  brilliant  thoroughfare,  stretching  between  the 
Delaware  and  the  Schuylkill.  Those  who  traverse  either 
may  see  the  great  twenty  story  building  wherein  is  made 
and  published  the  North  American,  the  oldest  daily  news- 
paper on  the  continent.  Northward  from  Broad  and  Chest- 
nut, rise  the  imposing  municipal  buildings,  on  the  crest  of 
whose  mountain  of  stone  and  peak  of  metal  is  visible  the 
bronze  statue  of  William  Penn,  founder  of  the  City  of 
Brotherly  Love,  Though  this  son  of  a  Dutch  mother  was 
the  beginner  of  the  City  of  Homes,  yet  there  have  been 
many  other  makers  of  Philadelphia. 

Not  least  among  those  who  have  builded  the  unseen  but 
nobler  city,  and  who  have  stamped  their  names  indelibly 
upon  human  hearts  and  lives,  even  unto  the  third  and  fourth 
generation  of  its  citizens,  is  John  Chambers.  During  forty- 
eight  years  he  was  pastor  of  the  First  Independent  Church, 
whose  second  edifice  stood  from  1831  to  1899  on  the  site  of 
the  twenty-storied  "sky-scraper"  at  Broad  and  Sansom 
streets. 

Happily,  in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things,  history  and 
sentiment  were  not  ignored  in  the  uprearing  of  the  mighty 
structure,  whose  cornice  is  not  far  from  the  clouds.  In  the 
two  lower  stories  of  the  facade  is  a  happy  reminder  of  the 
old  brown  stone  church  of  pillared  front.  Most  felicitously 
does  memory  find  here  a  sermon  in  stone  and  a  stimulus  in 
architecture.     Indeed,  a  former  worshipper  walking  on  the 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

other  side  of  the  street,  who  chanced  to  look  no  higher  than 
the  old  familiar  altitudes,  might  imagine  that  the  house  of 
prayer,  with  its  Ionic  columns,  still  stood  to  bless  its  wor- 
shippers. Even  of  the  same  hue  and  tint  as  in  childhood's 
days,  eight  columns  of  fluted  brown  sandstone  renew  in 
verisimilitude  the  old  architecture.  Thus  the  mighty  edifice 
enshrines  upon  its  front,  in  imperishable  masonry,  sugges- 
tions, at  least,  of  former  history. 

To  be  exact,  whereas  there  were  in  old  times  six  round 
fluted  Ionic  columns,  resting  on  high  square  bases,  support- 
ing a  simple  but  imposing  pediment,  there  are  to-day  eight 
front  columns  supporting  an  architrave,  with  two  mightier 
upholding  pillars  within. 

At  first  thought,  men  might  be  tempted  to  see  in  this 
colossal  structure,  whose  roof  is  so  much  nearer  the  sky  a 
symbol  of  "  the  power  of  the  press,"  which  is  alleged  to  be 
more  influential  than  the  pulpit.  One  political  gentleman 
whom  I  knew  well — even  he  who  in  1893,  raised  the  stars 
and  stripes  over  Hawaii — affirmed  in  my  hearing,  that  "one 
newspaper  was  equal  to  three  pulpits".  Yes,  but  that  de- 
pends on  which  newspaper  and  which  pulpit.  It  is  certain 
that  in  the  eyes  of  some,  printing  machinery  and  type,  and 
daily  square  miles  of  inked  paper,  for  which  whole  forests 
have  been  destroyed,  have  more  moral  potency  than  worship, 
prayer,  and  preaching.  Yet  against  this  modern  parable  bf 
the  mustard  seed  become  a  tree,  phenomenal  and  imposing, 
we  have  happily  also  the  Master's  parable  of  the  leaven,  or 
of  might  unseen,  of  a  kingdom  coming  "without  observa- 
tion ".  "  Things  seen  ",  even  when  dazzling  are  not  really 
as  potent  as  those  which  transform  the  life.  It  could  add 
little  or  nothing  to  the  reputation  of  John  Chambers,  to  put 
on  paper  with  ink  his  words  that  kindled  our  souls.  Yet, 
"  did  not  our  hearts  burn  within  us  "  when  we  heard  ?    Can 


THE  HISTORIC  SITE 

we  forget  them  ?  Was  not  his  a  life  unto  life  ?  "  He  being 
dead  yet  speaketh." 

So  then,  whether  standing  in  the  shadow  of  the  great 
edifice — typical  of  the  soaring  twentieth  centur}^ — or  setting 
foot  on  its  roof  high  in  air,  man}''  fathoms  higher  in  the 
deeps  of  space  than  where  once  we  sat  or  stood,  and  thence 
gazing  upon  the  sea  of  humanity  beneath,  or  over  the  great 
city  set  between  the  two  silver  streams,  and  ever  fascinating 
and  beautiful  with  boyhood's  memories,  let  us  stop  to  recall 
the  past.  Let  us  think  of  that  busy  and  potent  life  of  John 
Chambers  (1797-1875),  and  of  that  First  Independent 
Church  (1825-1873),  which,  like  a  spiritual  storage  battery, 
still  supplies  the  power  that  pulses  in  many  thousand  souls. 
Man  and  edifice,  though  vanished  from  earth,  give  by  their 
visible  potencies  or  inspiring  memories,  in  churches  and 
Sunday  Schools,  in  hallowed  homes  and  beautiful  careers  of 
men  and  women,  even  to  the  fourth  generation,  the  shining 
and  convincing  evidence  of  an  earthly  immortality,  of  life 
unto  life.  In  the  ever  widening  circles  of  eternity,  that  un- 
spent influence  will  be  felt. 

Let  us  now  descend  from  the  mountain  to  the  plain. 
Until  the  first  early  autumn  of  the  twentieth  century,  one 
could  see  also  on  the  east  side  of  Thirteenth  Street,  north  of 
Market  and  within  a  few  feet  of  Filbert  street,  a  four-sided, 
plain  gray  stone  or  marble  post,  in  which  even  a  casual 
passer-by  could  detect  a  survival.  It  was  an  old-timer, 
battered,  rubbed,  and  chipped.  Evidently  it  had  once  been 
a  hitching  post.  Then,  after  sundry  paintings  and  daub- 
ings,  it  had  served  for  various  advertising  purposes,  setting 
forth  the  changing  business  carried  on  in  the  dwelling  place 
itself,  in  front  of  which  it  stood,  or,  in  the  cellar  of  the 
same.  The  Belgian  block  pavements,  the  flagstone  side- 
walks, the  great  Reading  Railway  Terminal,  not  far  away, 
and  the  lofty  business  edifices  of  steel  and  stone,  with  a 

3 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

thousand  modern  suggestions,  all  seem  by  their  contrast  to 
suggest  antiquity  in  that  horse  post,  and  possibly  its  descent 
from  once  more  noble  uses. 

When,  however,  to  the  evidence  of  eyesight,  was  added 
the  play  of  memory  and  imagination,  then  there  rose  upon 
the  mind's  vision  the  little  brick  church,  the  Church  of  the 
Vow,  that  stood  directly  opposite,  where  John  Chambers, 
master  of  hearts  and  transformer  of  human  lives,  wrought 
and  taught.  Within  its  now  vanished  walls  the  sunny 
pastor,  the  shining  ornament  in  social  life,  the  soul-stirring 
preacher,  the  unquailing  soldier,  who  fought  evil  in  every 
form,  prayed,  preached,  and  labored  with  men.  Here  he 
communicated  quickening  impulses  not  yet  spent,  but  ever 
urging  on  to  vaster  issues.  Yes,  there  is  where  the  old 
church  stood. 

But  this  old  battered  horse-post, — so  close  by  the  curb 
stone  as  to  wear  ever  fresh  marks  of  tar  and  grease  from 
passing  wagon  wheel  hubs — what  has  it  to  do  with  John 
Chambers  and  the  First  Independent  Church  of  Philadel- 
phia, which  is  almost  forgotten  before  a  brood  of  lusty 
children  and  vigorous  grand-children  that  now  train  .thous- 
ands in  the  ways  of  holiness  ?  Especially  may  we  ask  the 
question,  since  the  church  and  the  post  were  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  street,  here  a  few  feet  wide. 

Well,  hereto  hangs  not  only  a  tale,  but  literally,  there 
hung  a  chain,  with  associations.  Before  the  First  Inde- 
pendent Church — that  church  which,  according  to  scripture 
and  reality,  though  not  in  common  parlance,  is  not  an  edi- 
fice, but  a  company  of  believers — was  formed,  in  1825, 
there  stood  at  Thirteenth  and  Filbert  streets,  a  comparatively 
new  building.  It  had  been  reared  in  fulfilment  of  a  vow 
made  during  a  storm  on  the  Atlantic  by  a  holy  woman  of 
prayer,  whose  life  was  saved.  Those  who  carried  out  her 
purpose  were  Irish  refugees,   seeking  freedom  in   America. 

4 


THE  HISTORIC  SITE 

Being  intense  Sabbatarians,  they  would  have  no  sound  of 
passing  wheel  or  hoof  on  the  Lord's  Day,  for  theirs  was  the 
age,  also,  of  Delaware  river  cobble  stones,  and  of  iron  tires. 
No  pneumatic  or  sound  deadening  rubber-swathed  wheels 
existed  then.  Hence,  to  warn  off  all  matutinal  disturbers 
of  the  solemnity  of  worship,  and  evening  passers  on  wheels, 
an  iron  chain  was  stretched  across  the  street,  guarding 
either  side,  north  or  south,  of  the  holy  edifice.  Thus,  in 
quiet,  the  people  within  could  worship  God.  The  same 
rule  held  in  other  neighborhoods  as  in  this  congregation, 
and  in  front  of  the  Presbyterian  church  edifice  at  Fourth 
and  Arch,  as  the  pictures  show,  a  similar  stout  iron  chain 
was  stretched.  It  was  the  rule  in  Sabbath-keeping  Phila- 
delphia, according  to  the  vigorous  law  of  1798. 

Philadelphia  was,  early  in  the  last  century,  a  little  place, 
of  only  tens  of  thousands,  and  so  long  as  there  were  but  few 
churches,  the  chains  seemed  appropriate.  As  the  city  grew, 
the  problem  for  the  firemen,  mail  wagons,  and  ambulances 
increased.  In  time  not  a  single  street  running  north  or 
south,  even  in  case  of  a  fire,  was  open  to  the  firemen,  who 
were  apt  to  make  quick  work  in  removing  obstacles.  A 
snow  storm  of  petitions,  for  and  against  the  repeal  of  the 
Acts  of  1798  and  the  removal  of  the  street  chains,  fell  on 
the  legislature  and  the  law  ceased  to  be  operative,  March  15, 
1830.  The  old  stone  posts  remained  and  occasionally  one 
may  be  recognized  by  the  keen-eyed  antiquarian  in  dear  old 
Philadelphia. 

Both  the  first  and  second  edifices,  in  which  John  Chambers 
labored  in  the  Gospel,  have  been  levelled  and  their  sites 
built  upon.  That  old  post,  effective  Sabbath  guardian,  has 
gone  ;  the  First  Independent  Church,  in  edifice  or  organiza- 
tion, is  no  more.  Nevertheless,  its  spirit  lives.  Like  Hul- 
dah's  home,  our  old  church  in  its  "  second  quarter  "  was  a 
"  college,"  and,  fellow  alumni,  we  shall  try  to  tell  the  story 

5 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

of  our  Alma  Mater,  "  mother  of  us  all,"  and  sketch  the 
life  and  work  of  the  great  and  good  man,  with  whom  the 
First  Independent  Church  began,  continued,  and  ended. 
Both  church  and  pastor  have  become  as  leaven  that  trans- 
forms, and  in  leavening  is  itself  transformed, — lost  to  form 
and  view,  while  yet  potent.  "The  eagle's  cry  is  heard 
even  after  its  form  disappears  behind  the  mountain,"  says 
the  Chinese  proverb. 

The  "  three  measures  of  meal  "  still  abide.  From  them 
is  still  supplied  the  bread  of  life  to  thousands.  To  change 
from  metaphor  to  facts  that  are  as  hard  as  stone,  and  as 
enduring  as  human  character,  there  are,  first  in  point  of 
time,  the  Bethany  Mission  Sunday-school  and  the  Bethanj' 
Presbyterian  Church ;  the  John  Chambers  Memorial 
Church,  an  offshoot  and  outgrowth  from  the  Bethanv 
Church  ;  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Rutledge,  Pa.  ;  the  St. 
Paul's  Presbyterian  Church  in  West  Philadelphia  ;  and  the 
magnificent  edifice  and  active  congregation  of  the  Cham- 
bers-Wylie  Memorial  Church  on  Broad  below  Pine  Street, 
which  enshrines  the  name  not  only  of  John  Chambers,  but 
of  T.  W.  J.  Wylie — two  noble  preachers  of  the  gospel,  sons 
of  thunder  and  also  of  consolation. 

Shall  we  attempt  to  measure  influence,  by  even  suggesting 
how  three  churches,  one  Presbyterian,  one  Baptist,  and  one 
Lutheran  grew  up  out  of  the  early  prayer  meetings  before 
1840,  sustained  chiefly  by  John  Chambers'  young  men? 
Shall  we  hint  at  the  missionary  and  educational  impulses 
given  at  "the  ends  of  the  earth"  by  missionaries,  or  of 
lives  nourished  or  transformed  in  our  home  land  by  the  forty 
or  more  ministers  of  the  gospel,  who  call  John  Chambers 
their  father  in  God  ? 

Nay,  our  dear  under-shepherd  himself,  were  he  with  us, 

would  say,  "  Not  unto  us  O  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  thy 

name  give  glory,  for  thy  mercy  and  thy  truth's  sake." 

Nisi  Dominus  Frustra. 

6 


CHAPTER  II. 

IRELAND.     A  BONNY  BAIRN. 

Many  a  chairman,  clerical  or  lay  brother,  in  introducing 
John  Chambers  to  an  always  delighted  audience,  referred  to 
his  "big  Irish  heart,"  and  indeed  he  had  in  him  all  the 
winning  and  fascinating  elements  which  make  the  jolly 
Irishman.  He  was  emotional,  clear-brained,  rich  in  personal 
magnetism,  and  in  general  a  "good  fellow".  He  had  in 
him  also  those  traits  which  characterize  the  strong,  clean, 
God-fearing  and  man-loving  Puritan,  whose  career  so  often 
illustrates  the  highest  type  of  manhood.  Of  superb  and 
commanding  figure,  six  feet  high,  and  the  most  imposing 
individual  known  in  the  Chambers  clan,  he  had  an  open 
illuminated  face,  and  eyes  that  penetrated  one's  inmost 
nature.  He  was  skilled  in  the  hand-shake  or  shoulder  pat, 
that  warmed  one's  entire  being  into  personal  loyalty  and 
were  inspirations  to  friendship  for  the  man  and  his  Master. 
His  face  made  you  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
To  these  physical  traits  may  be  added  an  absolutely  fearless 
mien  and  a  flashing  eye,  that  made  his  enemies  fear  him, 
even  when  they  most  hated  his  ways  and  words.  With 
leonine  countenance  and  majestic  presence,  was  a  tongue 
that  beat  the  blarney  stone,  and  yet  was  made,  under  God, 
a  unerring  instrument  in  winning  souls.  Some  one  has 
written  of  ' '  The  Pastor  as  Praiser  ' ' .  John  Chambers  by 
praising  a  boy  made  him  a  hero.  Often  a  word  from  him 
came  as  Paul's  clarion  call,  "  Stand  fast  ". 

In  brief,  John  Chambers  possessed  in  person,  bearing,  and 
characteristics,  the  noble  heritages  of  that  Scottish  race 
which  settled  in  north  Ireland,  and  which  has  shown  itself, 
especially  in  America,  one  of  the  most  distinctive  of  stocks, 

7 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

rich  in  mental  initiative  and  nervous  energy,  with  power  of 
manifold  adaptation  and  persistency.  In  America  the 
Scotch-Irish  have  certainly  influenced,  with  power  second 
to  that  of  no  other  strain  or  nationality,  the  making  of  the 
American  republic. 

The  people  of  north  Ireland  were  noted  for  their  Calvin- 
ism, which  in  practice  is  only  another  word  for  an  inextin- 
guishable love  of  freedom  and  democracy.  Their  faith 
fruited  in  free  schools,  popular  education,  family  worship, 
familiarity  with  the  Bible,  hatred  of  priest-craft,  Romanism, 
and  British  cruelty  and  oppression.  In  their  Christianity, 
some  Jewish  notions  in  survival  were  perhaps  put  on  a  level 
with  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  and  their  passionate  devotion 
to  Sabbath-keeping  seemed  sometimes  to  run  into  idolatry. 
They  were  not  at  all  disinclined  to  controversy,  and  many 
of  them  were  rather  fond  of  a  bit  of  a  fight.  Among  the 
less  sanctified,  religion  of  a  certain  narrow  sort  and  the 
contents  of  the  whiskey  bottle  were  very  much  in  demand. 

Naturally  the  British  government  with  its  aristocracy  and 
political  church,  its  absentee-landlordism  and  its  corrupt 
parliament — which  in  the  eighteenth  century  represented 
land  rather  than  people — had  much  trouble  with  this  in- 
sular people  of  many  virtues  and  some  glaring  defects. 
The  more  oppressive  measures  of  the  first  half  and  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  sent  tens  of  thousands  of  emi- 
grants to  America,  where  they  settled,  especially  in  New 
Hampshire,  the  Carolinas,  and  western  Pennsylvania.  Only 
too  glad  to  take  up  arms  against  the  British,  they  furnished 
from  their  ranks  for  the  Continental  army  and  patriot  parti- 
san bodies,  probably  a  larger  proportion  of  soldiers  than 
those  of  any  other  nationality  among  the  colonists.1  Many 
thousands  of  the  "  Yankees"  of  New  England  were  Irish- 
men.    In  North  Carolina  they  were  the  Regulators  whom 

lSee  Romance  of  American  Colonization.     Boston,  1898,  p.  272. 

8 


A  BONNY  BAIRN 

"  Bloody  Billy"  Tryon  slaughtered.  In  Sullivan's  Expe- 
dition of  1779,  one  of  the  most  important  campaigns  of  the 
Revolution,  four  of  the  five  generals,  and  possibly  a  ma- 
jority of  the  rank  and  file,  were  born  in  Ireland,  or  were  of 
Irish  stock.  At  the  banquet  held  in  the  forest,  on  the 
Chemung  River  on  the  site  of  Elmira,  N.  Y.,  on  Saturday 
September  25,  1779,  in  the  pavilion  of  greenery,  one  of  the 
thirteen  toasts  drunk  was  this, — ' '  May  Ireland  merit  a  stripe 
in  the  American  standard."  l 

The  general  dissatisfaction  in  Ireland,  not  only  among  the 
Catholics  who  suffered  from  oppressive  penal  statutes,  but 
also  among  the  Protestants,  broke  out  in  1798  into  a  re- 
bellion fomented  by  the  numerous  secret  societies  then  in  the 
island.  To  read  this  page  of  history  brings  us  to  the  parent- 
age and  birth  of  John  Chambers,  who  sprung  not  from 
"illiterate"  folk,  as  some  have  ignorantly  imagined,  but 
from  intelligent  and  educated  as  well  as  patriotic  parentage 
and  ancestry. 

William  Chambers,  the  father  of  our  American  John,  was 
born  in  1768  of  fairly  well-to-do  parents,  and  had  a  good 
education.  One  of  his  ancestors  was  an  officer  in  the  British 
navy.  When  about  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  he  married 
a  Miss  Smythe,  or  Smith,  who  was  traditionally  descended 
from  Robert  the  Bruce,  being  one  of  a  family  which  has 
furnished  a  long  succession  of  Presbyterian  ministers  in 
Scotland,  Ireland,  and  the  United  States.  Their  first  son 
and  eldest  child,  they  named  James.  Their  second  son, 
John,  is  the  subject  of  our  biography.  John  Chambers  was 
born  on  September  19,  1797  in  Stewartstown,  Tyrone  county, 
Ireland. 

There  are  four  towns  of  this  name  in  the  United  States, 
settled  probably  by  Irishmen,  and  the  original  place  in  Ire- 
land, in  1880,  contained  931  souls. 

1See  the  Pathfinders  of  the  Revolution.     Boston,  1900,  p.  296. 

9 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

William  Chambers  was  a  hot-headed,  impulsive  man  of 
great  physical  vigor,  a  superb  horseman,  and  a  leader  in 
athletic  sports.  In  early  manhood  he  was  powerfully  influ- 
enced in  his  political  opinions  and  action  by  the  ideas  ex- 
ploited in  both  the  American  and  the  French  Revolutions. 
A  fierce  patriot,  he  became  a  follower  of  the  famous  Wolf 
Tone,  and  in  their  ups  and  downs  on  the  wheel  of  politics, 
both  master  and  disciple  found  themselves  in  prison  within 
a  few  days  of  each  other.  William  Chambers  b}'  some 
means  escaped,  but  was  soon  involved  in  trouble  with  the 
British  authorities,  and  so  engaged  passage  to  America. 

Theobald  Wolf  Tone  (1763-1798),  orator  and  advocate  of 
the  freedom  of  Ireland,  was  educated  at  Trinity  College, 
Dublin.  He  wrote  pamphlets  exposing  British  misgovern- 
ment,  joined  Protestants  and  Catholics  in  political  fraternity, 
and  founded  at  Belfast  the  first  Society  of  United  Irishmen, 
which  William  Chambers  promptly  joined.  It  is  believed 
that  at  this  time  the  green  flag  of  Ireland  was  adopted,  by 
uniting  the  orange  and  the  blue.  It  is  certain  that  at  this 
time,  green  became  the  national  color,  although  an  emerald 
green  standard  was  used  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

One  of  these  United  Irishmen  was  Samuel  Brown  Wylie, 
who  became  the  celebrated  pastor,  preacher,  and  Doctor  of 
Divinity  in  Philadelphia.  He  left  Ireland  in  1797.  In 
God's  providence,  exactty  one  century  afterwards,  the 
names  of  Chambers  and  Wylie  were  united  in  Philadelphia 
in  that  of  a  memorial  church. 

Wolf  Tone,  as  secretary  of  the  Roman  Catholic  com- 
mittee, had  already  entered  into  secret  negotiations  with 
France  and  had  to  fly  to  the  United  States  in  1795.  He  was 
afterwards  captured  on  one  of  the  ships  of  the  French 
squadron,  which  was  to  invade  Ireland. 

The  French  having  occupied  Holland,  had  had  a  great 
fleet  built  in  the  Zuyder  Zee  to  cooperate  with  the  United 


A  BONNY  BAIRN 

Irishmen,  but  at  the  battle  of  Camperduin,  off  the  coast  of 
North  Holland,  October  nth,  1797,  the  British  Admiral 
Duncan  destroyed  the  French  and  Dutch  fleet,  and  the  high 
hopes  of  those  who  looked  for  Irish  independence  were 
dashed  to  the  ground.     Hundreds  of  them  fled. 

Tried  and  sentenced  to  death,  Wolf  Tone  committed 
suicide  in  his  cell,  November  19th,  1798.  His  son  after- 
wards served  in  the  armies  of  France  and  the  United  States 
and  wrote  the  biography  of  his  father.  Ever  since  1797, 
the  British  navy  has  had  a  ship  named  "  Camperdown  ". 

In  Scotland  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  visiting  the  Dun- 
can estate  near  Dundee,  and  in  Holland  of  seeing  Camper- 
duin and  its  vicinity,  both  of  land  and  water. 

The  defeat  of  the  French  fleet  and  the  imprisonment, 
trial,  and  sentence  of  their  leader,  Wolf  Tone,  drove  the 
United  Irishmen  into  an  insurrection  of  despair.  At  the 
battle  of  Vinegar  Hill,  in  May,  1798,  the  revolt  was  crushed 
and  the  French  general  Humbert  surrendered.  Forthwith 
the  British  constables  began  their  hunt  for  each  one  and  all 
of  the  United  Irishmen  to  land  them  in  prison. 

William  Chambers  was,  as  we  have  seen,  arrested  and 
thrown  into  prison  at  Stewartstown.  In  some  way  he 
escaped  and  eluded  those  who  were  seeking  him,  until  he 
made  his  way  down  to  the  ship,  on  which  his  family  was 
leaving  Ireland  for  America.  Besides  his  wife  with  her 
little  boys,  James  and  John,  the  latter  an  infant  of  three 
months  at  the  breast,  were  other  emigrants  on  board.  In 
the  hold,  there  was  a  stock  of  cabbages  and  down  among 
these  vegetables  the  refugee  father  hid  himself.  The  British 
officers  came  on  board  and  searched  the  ship  from  stem  to 
stern  to  find  their  man,  but  his  wife  had  encouraged 
him  to  get  so  deeply  under  the  material  for  sauerkraut,  and 
had  covered  him  up  so  well,  that,  unable  to  find  him,   they 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

imagined  he  must  have  fled  elsewhere.  It  was  not  until 
the  ship  was  well  out  at  sea  that  William  Chambers  rose  up 
from  among  the  cabbages  and  made  himself  visible.  In 
later  years,  John  Chambers  visited  the  Stewartstown 
prison  in  which  his  father  had  been  incarcerated. 

In  the  slow  ship  they  were  knocked  about  on  the  wintry 
Atlantic  during  a  stormy  voyage  of  fourteen  weeks,  but 
happily  arrived  in  the  Delaware  Bay,  just  when  the  buds 
were  bursting,  and  the  landscape  of  spring  time  putting  on 
its  fresh  mantle  of  green.  After  their  sea  weariness  the 
peach-orchards  of  Delaware  must  have  looked  as  "fair  as 
a  garden  of  the  Lord." 

The  Mayflower,  which  in  1620  bore  the  Pilgrims  to 
America,  was  bound  for  the  same  beautiful  region,  then 
vaguely  called  "Virginia"  but  these  people  in  1799  were 
pilgrims  bound  to  the  forests  of  Ohio,  the  first  of  the  Pil- 
grim states  beyond  the  Alleghenies.1 

Landing  at  Newcastle,  William  Chambers  and  his  little 
family  soon  joined  a  great  party  of  emigrants  who  were 
turning  their  faces  westward.  Ohio  was  then,  except  for 
the  river  valleys  and  old  maize  lands  of  the  Indians,  an  al- 
most unbroken  forest.  In  those  days,  when  there  was  neither 
canal,  railway  nor  trolley,  such  roads  as  existed,  traversed 
chiefly  the  long  stretches  of  dark  woods.  They  were  made 
of  corduroy,  or  logs  laid  cross  wise,  with  a  surface  covering 
of  earth.  Very  few  counties  were  as  yet  named  or  laid  out 
in  the  Buckeye  State,  for  it  was  only  five  years  after  General 
Anthony  Wayne's  great  victory  at  Mauraee  Rapids  over 
the  Indians,  and  many  of  the  red  men  were  still  in  the  land. 
Frontier  life  was  still  very  rough,  both  as  respects  material 
comfort  and  the  relations  of  the  settlers  with  the  Indians. 
The  second  stage  of  territorial  life  was  entered  upon  in  this 

1  See  the  Pilgrims  in  their  Three  Homes,  Boston,  1898. 

12 


A  BONNY  BAIRN 

same  year,  1799,  and  the  State  Legislature  had  met  for  the 
first  time  in  Cincinnati. 

Slowly  and  painfully  the  caravan  of  home  seekers  made 
its  way  through  Pennsylvania  over  the  great  road  through 
Harrisburg  and  the  Juniata  valley,  Hollidaysburgand  Pitts- 
burg, where  Scotchmen  and  Irishmen  were  still  very  numer- 
ous. Thence  floating  down  the  Ohio  River,  they  reached 
the  first  county  on  the  western  side,  which  was  later  named 
after  Thomas  Jefferson,  third  president  of  the  United  States. 
The  Irish  pioneer  from  Stewartstown  helped  to  lay  out  the 
original  townships  of  the  county,  in  which  Warren  Ridge 
was  situated,  often  going  ahead  to  blaze  some  trees  along 
the  future  road.  Later,  in  1799,  he  settled  at  Smithfield, 
and  ultimately  at  Mount  Pleasant.  It  was  to  this  last 
named  place  that  the  visits  of  John  Chambers,  notably  in 
1843  and  1 86 1,  were  made. 


13 


CHAPTER  III. 

OHIO.     LIFE  IN  A  LOG  CABIN. 

The  little  baby  boy  John's  first  American  home  was  a  log 
cabin  and  his  cradle  was  made  of  part  of  a  hollowed-out 
tree  trunk.  When  be  began  noticing  things  from  the  door- 
way, his  eyes  took  in  a  great  space  filled  with  a  multitude 
of  stumps,  the  dark  and  lonely  forest,  the  new  and  strange 
fields  of  Indian  corn,  the  tender  green  of  spring,  the  gold  of 
autumn,  and  the  great  white  landscape  of  winter.  When 
he  was  but  three  years  old,  Ohio  became  a  state. 

Remembering  the  witticism,  so  common  a  generation  ago, 
that  "some  men  are  born  great,  and  some  are  born  in 
Ohio  ",  we  may  believe  that  John  Chambers  came  very  near 
a  double  inheritance,  though  failing  in  but  one  share  ;  for, 
to  the  end  of  his  days,  he  boasted  that  he  was  by  birth  an 
Irishman. 

Among  his  earliest  playthings  were  the  "buckeyes"  ,  or 
horse-chestnuts,  from  the  particular  tree,  so  plentiful  in  the 
new  land.  As  the  Bible  was  then,  besides  being  in  supreme 
honor  as  the  Word  of  God,  the  one  familiar  volume,  library, 
reference,  and  text-book,  source  of  literary  and  intellectual 
recreation,  John,  as  he  learned  to  read,  was  as  much  de- 
lighted to  find  the  popular  name  of  "Ohio"  in  the  Bible, 
as  American  tourists  in  Japan  are,  to  hear  the  sound  of  this 
good  State's  name,  in  the  Japanese  for  "  good  morning  'V 

In  after  years,  in  the  freshness  of  his  metropolitan  fame, 
John  Chambers  visited  several  times  his  old  home,  the  log 
cabin  in  which  he  grew  up.  The  house  is  now  a  weather- 
boarded  dwelling  place,  but  in  the  wooden  walls  is  still  to 
be  seen  the  little  hollow  place  or  alcove,  where  were  kept 

^ee  I.  Chronicles  VI  :5,  about  Bukki,  the  father  of  Uzzi. 

14 


LIFE  IN  A  LOG  CABIN 

the  decanters  or  glasses,  containing  cherry  brandy  and 
whiskey,  which  were  so  popular  and  in  such  general  use  in 
those  early  days  before  teetotalism,  or  prohibition  or  no 
license  was  known.  During  the  war  of  1812,  this  house  was 
used  as  a  recruiting  station  for  volunteers,  and  here  the 
young  soldiers  pledged  their  glass  in  token  of  their  patriot- 
ism and  comradeship.  Against  this  phase  of  social  life,  the 
boy  John  set  his  face  from  the  first. 

William  Chambers  lived  the  life  of  a  pioneer  in  the 
American  forest.  He  gained  his  bread  by  tilling  the  soil, 
and  a  little  ready  money  by  burning  the  timber  and  leaching 
the  potash  out  of  the  ashes,  and  by  other  industries  common 
to  the  forest.  Indian  cooking  was  soon  learned  and  the  food 
of  the  red  man  became  popular.  In  fact  there  are  very  few 
purely  American  dishes,  which  are  not  evolutions  from  the 
Indian  originals.  Sugar  was  plentiful  from  the  maple  trees, 
but  salt  was  very  costly  and  hard  to  get.  By  boring  wells, 
brine  was  found  from  which  good  salt  could  be  made. 

Life  on  the  frontier  was  necessarily  rude  in  some  points, 
especially  in  moral  relations  with  the  Indians.  As  pretty 
much  all  Irishmen  are  very  fond  of  religion  and  whiskey 
and  a  bit  of  a  fight,  there  were  often  rough  scenes.  William 
Chambers  was  a  strong  character  and  his  hot  temper  was 
easily  roused,  but  his  wife,  an  equally  strong  character,  but 
with  finer  strength,  was  cool-headed  and  made  a  good 
balance  for  her  husband.  She  was  a  noted  nurse  and 
especially  skilful  in  the  sickroom.  Hence  she  was  often 
called  upon  for  help  by  both  friends  and  strangers  in  time  of 
pain  and  misfortune.  Malaria  and  homesickness  were  com- 
mon woes.  Devoutly  pious,  she  trained  up  her  children  in 
the  fear  and  love  of  God,  and  by  them  and  even  by  later 
generations  her  memory  is  treasured. 

The  religion  of  these  pioneers  may  have  been  narrow,  but 
it  was  strong  and  deep.     It  was  based  on  a  first-hand  knowl- 

15 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

edge  of  the  English  Bible.  Even  in  his  early  life,  as  I 
remember  Mr.  Chambers  saying,  he  revolted  against  bigotry 
and  the  kind  of  religion  that  was  not  rich  in  love  to  one's 
neighbor.  These  were  psalm-singers  and  not  hymn-using 
Christians,  but  the  Methodist  preachers  and  Christians  of 
other  sorts  than  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  were  in  the  land. 
The  boy  John  once  heard  an  old  gentleman  say  that  he 
would  as  soon  sit  down  to  the  Lord's  Supper  with  a  horse- 
thief,  as  with  a  man  who  sang  Dr.  Watt's  version  of  the 
Psalms. 

Little  John  also  refused  to  touch  liquor,  for  he  saw  the 
awful  effects  of  its  use,  and  grew  to  have  a  hatred  of  it. 
On  one  occasion,  the  little  fellow  rebuked  a  crowd  of  men, 
including  his  own  father,  for  their  drinking  habits  whereby 
the  parent,  William  Chambers  was  greatly  affected.  "  The 
heart  of  the  child  three  years  old  is  in  the  heart  of  the  sage 
of  sixty,"  as  says  the  Japanese  proverb,  was  true  of  John 
Chambers,  the  metropolitan  preacher,  but  it  was  in  child- 
hood that  God  began  to  shape  this  bonnie  bairn  for  a  long 
life  of  usefulness.  The  boy  in  the  Ohio  forests  was  a  hearty 
hater  of  all  bickering  and  squabbling.  He  was  often  called 
upon  to  settle  differences.  He  came  to  be  known  among 
neighbors  and  friends  as  "  the  little  peacemaker."  "The 
child  is  father  to  the  man,"  and  all  his  life  John  Chambers 
was  mighty  as  a  reconciler. 

John  Chambers's  boyhood  was  thus  spent  in  the  wilder- 
ness in  continuous  hard  work,  by  which  he  toughened  his 
thews  and  kept  his  cheeks  rosy,  rising  into  brave,  pure,  and 
clean  manhood.  He  took  his  part  in  the  hard  work  of  the 
farm,  even  to  clearing  the  forest.  He  knew  what  it  was  to 
1 '  lift  up  axes  against  thick  trees. ' '  With  his  other  brothers 
and  sisters,  he  enjoyed  life  to  the  full.  Politically,  in  this 
Jeffersonian  era,  his  parents  took  the  Democratic  view  of 

16 


LIFE  IN  A  LOG  CABIN 

things,  so  that  their  offspring  had  the  spirit  of  democracy 
in  their  veins.  All  his  life  the  intensely  patriotic  John  fol- 
lowed the  faith  of  his  father,  and  was,  as  he  called  himself, 
a  Constitutional  State-Rights  Democrat. 

He  was  taught  to  read  and  write  at  home,  but  with  that 
true  instinct  for  education,  which  is  inborn  with  Calvinists 
and  the  Scotch-Irishmen,  his  parents  wished  to  have  him 
better  educated.  They  sent  him,  therefore,  when  he  was 
but  fifteen  years  of  age,  to  Baltimore,  where  lived  some  of 
their  relatives.  A  journey  over  the  mountains  in  the  early 
nineteenth  century  was  like  a  trip  to  the  Philippines  in  our 
days,  but  John  gladly  set  out  on  horseback,  with  a  party, 
in  the  spring  of  1813,  to  the  city  on  the  Patapsco. 

It  seems  that  he  had  no  special  purpose  of  remaining 
permanently  there,  but  Providence  made  his  a  stay  of 
twelve  years.  After  some  experience  at  school,  he  decided 
to  learn  the  jeweler's  trade.  Thus  with  business,  and  later 
with  love,  and  then  a  call  to  the  ministry,  Baltimore  was  to 
be  the  city  in  which  his  mind  was  shaped,  and  which  all  his 
life  was  to  him,  socially,  as  magnet  and  star. 

Patriotism,  too,  had  something  to  do  with  making  the 
Monumental  City  his  home.  It  was  war  time,  and  the 
second  struggle  with  Great  Britain  was  on.  As  a  munici- 
pality, the  young  city,  but  sixteen  years  old,  had  already 
become  a  famous  place  for  the  building  of  ships,  the  timber 
being  floated  down  from  the  heart  of  New  York  state  and 
from  northern  Pennsylvania,  along  the  old  line  of  Sullivan's 
march  of  1779,  by  way  of  the  Susquehanna  River.  Imme- 
diately on  the  declaration  of  war  by  Congress,  a  swarm  of 
privateers  sailed  out  of  the  Patapsco  and  Chesapeake  to 
prey  on  Great  Britain's  commerce,  especially  in  the  West 
Indies.  Hence  the  British  government  early  decided  that 
one  of  the  first  places  to  be  occupied  was  Baltimore.  The 
2  17 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

stalwart  youth  from  Ohio  arrived  in  good  time  to  hold  a 
shovel  and  dig  earth  to  throw  up  entrenchments,  over  which 
waved  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner".  He  worked  several 
days  in  the  trenches.  In  September,  1814,  the  British  forces 
made  their  attack  under  Col.  Ross,  a  veteran  under  Sir  John 
Moore  and  Wellington.  Their  commander  was  killed  and 
the  assault  given  up.  The  next  day  Admiral  Cockburn's 
fleet  bombarded  Fort  McHenry  in  vain.  The  attack  from 
ship  by  water  was  as  ignominious  a  failure  as  was  the 
attempt  by  land.  The  happy  result  was  the  deliverance  of 
the  city  and  the  birth  of  America's  national  song,  "The 
Star-Spangled  Banner".  Thomas  Scott  Key,  detained 
against  his  will  on  the  deck  of  the  British  man-of-war 
Minden,  was  an  indignant  spectator  of  the  bombardment, 
but  in  the  morning  of  September   14th,  saw  his  country's 

flag  ' '  in   full  glory  reflected on  the  stream  ' ' . 

In  1876  a  bronze  statue  to  his  memory  was  erected  and  Old 
Defenders'  Day  keeps  alive  the  stirring  memories  of 
September  nth,  18 13. 


18 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MARYLAND.     STUDENT  DAYS  IN  BALTIMORE. 

Soon  after  coming  to  Baltimore  John  Chambers  became  a 
member  of  the  Associate  Reformed  Presbyterian  Church,  of 
which  the  Rev.  John  Mason  Duncan  was  pastor.  Under 
the  preaching  of  this  eminent  prophet,  the  mind  of  the 
young  man  expanded.  Indeed  it  was  so  shaped  and  moulded 
by  Dr.  Duncan,  that  we  may  consider  him  as  the  greatest 
of  all  John  Chambers'  teachers,  and  his  direct  influence  as 
greater  than  all  subsequent  schools  and  teachings.  ' '  My 
honored  father  in  Christ"  was  Mr.  Chambers'  designation. 
Dr.  Duncan  saw  in  the  young  Ohio  lad  "  an  eloquent  man 
and  mighty  in  the  scriptures  ".  He  persuaded  him  to  study 
for  the  ministry,  which  John,  soon  after  uniting  with  the 
church,  determined  to  do. 

In  pursuance  of  his  plan,  the  lad  entered  the  Classical 
Academy  of  the  Rev.  James  Gray,  D.D.,  formerly  of  Phila- 
delphia, who  had  established  in  Baltimore  one  of  the 
numerous  first- class  schools  in  the  South,  almost  every  one 
of  which  was  founded  by  people  of  Scotch-Irish  descent. 
When  it  came  to  the  study  of  theology  and  practical  training 
for  the  pastorate,  John  Chambers  followed  the  method  which 
was  then  the  common  one  in  America.  Very  few  theologi- 
cal seminaries  then  existed  in  the  country.  That  at  New 
Brunswick,  N.  J.,  probably  the  oldest,  was  scarcely  fifteen 
years  of  age  ;  that  at  Princeton  hardly  over  two  years  old. 
There  were  one  or  two  in  New  England.  For  a  young  man 
having  the  ministry  in  view,  it  was  the  usual  custom  to 
study  under  his  own  pastor,  a  method  not  without  great 
benefits,  especially  in  this  instance,  as  Dr.  Duncan  was  one 
of  the  most  eloquent  ministers  in  the  country.  John  Cham- 
bers learned  how  to  preach  by  preaching.     He  was  success- 

19 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

ful  with  human  beings  because  he  knew  them  so  well.  He 
was  a  master  of  the  scriptures  "  in  the  original  English  ". 
Only  those  who  afterward  sat  for  years  under  John  Cham- 
bers' preaching  so  long  as  to  be  saturated  with  his  ideas,  to 
know  the  basic  principles  of  his  thought  and  the  workings 
of  his  mind,  and  have  also  read  and  studied  Dr.  Duncan's 
works,  can  realize  how  greatly  the  pupil  was  indebted  to  his 
great  master. 

In  fact  it  was  John  Mason  Duncan  who  gave  the  keynote 
of  the  gospel  message  as  to  its  form,  and  it  was  John  Cham- 
bers who  filled  out  the  strain.  The  theme  was  set  in  Balti- 
more, the  variations  given  in  Philadelphia.  The  pupil  fol- 
lowed the  master  very  closely  in  practical  organization  and 
discipline  also.  Dr.  Duncan  was  suspicious  of  all  creeds 
and  confessions  of  faith  when  made  instruments  of  ecclesias- 
tical power.  His  trust  in  the  people  was  sincere,  profound, 
intense,  and  practical.  In  theology  he  ever  laid  stress  on 
"  the  mediatorial  reign  of  Christ  and  his  absolute  ability 
and  willingness  to  save  all  mankind  ",  which  willingness  it 
was  his  delight  to  demonstrate  from  the  Scriptures  and  "  to 
rescue  the  Gospel  call  from  false  philosophy  ".  Dr.  Duncan 
was  jealous,  almost  to  hostility,  of  theological  seminaries, 
and  also  of  the  growing  usurpations  of  power  by  synods. 
He  dubbed  America  "  the  land  of  synods".  He  wrote  at 
the  time  when  even  the  liberty  of  the  presbyteries  seemed 
endangered  by  the  centralizing  power  of  the  synods  :  ' '  To 
persevere  in  such  a  course  is  to  raise  up  a  class  of  men  who, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  must  be  destitute  of  sympathy 
with  the  people  ;  who  will  rise  above  the  people  as  being 
their  superiors  and  governors,  and  who  will  ultimately  dis- 
tract and  divide  the  church  by  their  philosophic  subtleties 
and  literary  distinction  ". 

Verily  the  writer  of  those  words  was  a  prophet. 

Dr.  Duncan's  trust  in  the  people  was  so  great  because,  as 

20 


STUDENT  DA  YS  IN  BAL  TIMORE 

he  believed  and  taught,  "the  Bible  is  addressed  to  the 
people  ". 

All  of  this  John  Chambers  believed,  carrying  out,  even  to 
a  fuller  logical  conclusion,  his  teacher's  doctrines. 

In  his  book  entitled  "  An  Essay  on  the  Origin,  Character 
and  the  Tendency  of  Creeds  and  Confessions  of  Faith  as  In- 
struments of  Ecclesiastical  Power",  Dr.  Duncan  showed  in 
his  first  chapter  that  "the  intention  of  this  essay,  strictly 
political  in  character,  involves  the  great  question  of  human 
liberty  to  think,  speak,  to  write,  to  act  ".  He  delivered  also 
a  course  of  lectures  on  "  The  General  Principles  in  Moral 
Government",  as  they  are  exhibited  in  the  first  three  chap- 
ters of  Genesis,  in  which  the  same  ideas  are  more  fully  car- 
ried out. 

Here  is  one  of  his  passages  : 

"Supposing  then  a  minister — blameless,  faithful,  apt  to 
teach,  believing  in  the  great  truths  now  defined,  i.e.  '  the 
Word  made  flesh  ' — should  come  to  preach,  who  has  a  right 
to  prevent  him,  or  to  refuse  to  recognize  him  as  a  true  bishop 
and  to  stigmatize  him  as  a  heretic  ?  The  apostle  John  says 
he  is  of  God,  and  any  trial  to  which  the  statute  in  question 
would  subject  him  must  result  in  the  equivocal  recognition 
of  that  fact.  Presbyteries,  as  they  are  now  constructed,  will 
not  and  cannot  admit  such  a  man  to  ministerial  and  church 
fellowship  without  violating  the  principles  of  their  party. 
They  will  not  and  cannot  ordain  such  a  man  without  some- 
thing more.  .  .  .  What  mischief  would  the  most  exten- 
sive liberality  produce  ?  ' ' 

In  a  biography  of  John  Chambers  we  shall  see  the  perti- 
nence of  this  quotation  when  we  come  to  the  story  of  his 
ordination. 

The  instructor  of  young  Chambers  was  the  Rev.  James 
Gray,  D.D.,  who  published  a  book  entitled  "The  Media- 
torial Reign  of  the  Son  of  God,  or  the  Absolute  Ability  and 

21 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Willingness  of  Jesus  Christ  to  Save  all  Mankind,  Demon- 
strated from  the  Scriptures — an  Attempt  to  Rescue  the  Gos- 
pel Call  from  False  Philosophy",  in  which  the  grandeur, 
glory  and  all-embracing  nature  of  the  divine  call  to  salvation 
is  set  forth. 

This  Dr.  Gray,  born  in  Ireland  on  Christmas  day,  1770, 
had  come  to  America  in  1797,  two  years  before  his  pupil, 
John  Chambers.  Probably  he  had  been  one  of  the  United 
Irishmen.  After  preaching  at  Washington,  N.  Y.,  he  set- 
tled, in  1808,  in  Philadelphia,  over  the  Spruce  Street  Asso- 
ciate Reformed  Church.  In  the  Quaker  City  he  became  a 
very  popular  leader  in  many  good  things.  He  helped  to 
found  the  Philadelphia  Bible  Society  and  received  the  de- 
gree of  Doctor  of  Divinity  from  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. With  Rev.  S.  B.  Wylie  (father  of  the  Dr.  Wylie, 
whose  name  is  embalmed  in  the  title  of  the  Chambers- 
Wylie  Memorial  Church),  he  opened  a  Classical  Academy 
which  became  famous.  After  a  few  years  he  removed  to 
Baltimore.  Besides  his  study  of  theology  and  writing  of  the 
book  on  which  his  reputation  rests — the  Mediatorial  Reign 
of  the  Son  of  God — (a  favorite  phrase  of  Mr.  Chambers,  even 
as  the  book  was  known  by  heart),  he  started  a  theological 
review  which  lived  but  a  year.  He  died  at  Gettysburg,  Pa. , 
September  20,  1824. 

It  will  be  easily  seen  that  under  such  teachers  as  Duncan 
and  Gray,  men  of  national  repute,  the  Ohio  boy  received  no 
mean  training.  On  Garfield's  theory,  that  a  seat  on  a  log, 
at  the  other  end  of  which  Mark  Hopkins  was  teacher,  might 
outrank  the  most  show}'  university  and  apparatus,  John 
Chambers  was  a  college  bred  man.  Under  such  direct,  con- 
stant and  personal  influence  as  the  Ohio  boy  in  Baltimore 
received,  the  value  of  the  quality  of  his  education  cannot  be 
over  estimated.  It  is  very  certain  that  no  number  of  brick 
or  stone  edifices  on  a  university  campus,  or  profusion  of  ap- 
paratus in  the  laboratories,  or  comforts  and  luxuries  in  the 


STUDENT  DA  YS  IN  BAL  TIMORE 

student's  room  of  to-day,  can  take  the  place  of  the  personal 
influence  of  great  teachers.  Nor  can  these  turn  out  men 
who  excel  in  character  and  abilities  the  leaders  of  men  in 
the  United  States  of  America  in  the  early  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, among  whom  the  home-bred  John  Chambers  was  a 
characteristic  specimen. 

Yet,  though  favored  with  such  acute,  learned,  and  in- 
spiring teachers,  and  kindled  by  fervor  with  ideas  that  made 
heat  as  well  as  light  in  his  soul,  John  Chambers'  idea  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus  was,  that  first  of  all  it  must  be  practical. 
There  was  no  special  division  of  it  called  "applied 
Christianity,"  To  him  it  was  all  application.  How  it 
could  ever  be  printed  in  a  catechism  and  exist  apart  from 
life,  he  refused  to  see.  He  scorned  professions  of  orthodoxy 
or  of  doctrine  that  did  not  quickly  and  permanently  bear 
fruit  in  holy  living,  and  in  service  for  souls.  With  five  or 
six  other  young  men,  he  started  prayer  meetings  and  evan- 
gelistic labors. 

When  ready  for  examination  for  the  ministry  Mr.  Cham- 
bers made  his  appearance  before  the  Second  Presbytery  of 
Philadelphia,  and  in  May,  1824,  received  his  license  to  preach 
the  Gospel  and  to  accept  a  call  to  the  pastorate.  This  body 
of  ministers  and  elders  which  licensed  him  was  dissolved 
in  the  autumn  of  1824,  and  Mr.  Chambers  was  then  re- 
ceived as  a  licentiate  under  the  care  of  the  Presbytery  of 
Baltimore. 

It  was  about  ten  months  after  his  first  visit  to  Phila- 
delphia to  receive  license,  that  is  in  March,  1825,  that  Mr. 
Chambers  was  invited  to  preach  in  the  Margaret  Duncan 
(Associate  Reformed)  Church  in  Philadelphia.  The  little 
brick  edifice  had  been  erected  in  compliance  with  the  will 
of,  and  as  a  gift  from,  the  grandmother  of  Dr.  John  Mason 
Duncan,  and  the  latter  as  well  as  Mr.  Chambers'  preceptor, 
Dr.  James  Mason  Gray,  had  taken  part  in  the  dedicatory 

services  in  1815. 

23 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

The  church  itself  at  this  time,  1825,  was  a  struggling  one. 
The  edifice  was  in  a  poor  and  thinly  inhabited  part  of  the  city. 
There  was  no  fund  for  the  support  of  the  building,  and  the 
Associate  Reformed  denomination  in  the  United  States  was 
weak  and  poor,  with  a  scarcity  of  ministers.  Happily  other 
Presbyterians  gave  assistance  and  supplied  the  pulpit  ; 
otherwise,  the  building  would  have  been  often  closed  for 
long  periods  at  a  time.  The  first  regular  'pastor  was  the 
Rev.  Thomas  Gilfillan  Mclnnis,  who  was  called  to  the 
service  early  in  1822.  He  died  on  the  26th  of  August,  1824, 
and  the  flock  was  left  shepherdless.  There  was  even  better 
provision  for  the  dead  than  for  the  living.  On  the  7th  of 
October,  1824,  Robert  A.  Caldcleugh  and  wife  presented  to 
the  minister,  elders,  and  fifty-two  church  members,  a  lot  of 
ground,  on  the  South  side  of  Race  street  between  what  was 
the ''Schuylkill  Third"  and  "Schuylkill  Fourth"  streets, 
now  Nineteenth  and  Twentieth,  for  a  cemetery.  This  lot 
is  eighteen  feet  six  inches  wide  and  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
nine  feet  deep. 

This  was  the  situation,  when  Mr.  Chambers  was  called, 
in  March,  1825,  to  preach  as  a  candidate.  He  came  on  from 
Baltimore  and  on  two  Sundays  in  April  told  the  people  of 
God's  love  in  Christ  Jesus.  His  sermons  were  as  a  mighty 
stack  of  fuel,  with  the  breath  of  the  Lord  on  the  first  Sab- 
bath kindling  it,  and  the  wind  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the 
second  Lord's  Day  turning  it  into  vehement  flame.  A  triple 
fire  of  love  to  God,  of  the  people  to  the  young  pastor,  and 
of  his  young  heart  to  them  began  its  glow,  which  paled  not 
until  after  fifty  years  of  beacon  glory  it  was  quenched  by 
death. 

"The  flashes  thereof  are  as  flashes  of  fire 

A  very  flame  of  Jehovah 
Many  waters  cannot  quench  love, 
Neither  can  floods  drown  it." 

24 


CHAPTER  V. 

NEWTOWN.     REJECTED   OF  MEN. 

Since  out  of  the  Margaret  Duncan  Church,  or  "  Church  of 
the  Vow",  have  grown,  it  is  believed,  at  least  ten  other 
churches,  and  since  the  tradition  of  her  ocean  experiences 
has  taken  varied  shapes  and  forms  in  its  transmission,  we 
shall  give  a  narrative  which  is  probably  the  most  in  accord- 
ance with  fact. 

Mrs.  Margaret  Duncan,  on  the  death  of  her  husband,  a 
prosperous  merchant  of  Philadelphia,  determined  to  visit  old 
friends  in  Stewartstown,  Tyrone  County,  Ireland,  in  which 
she  had  been  born.  She  took  with  her  her  little  grandson, 
who  was  to  become  the  famous  Dr.  John  Mason  Duncan. 
Returning  across  the  ocean  in  the  autumn  of  1798,  the  ship 
sailing  from  Belfast,  Ireland,  was  loaded  heavily  with  many 
passengers,  most  of  them  poor  emigrants,  but  had  little 
cargo  in  the  hold.  It  is  said  that  the  captain  had  never 
crossed  the  Atlantic.  The  compass  was  out  of  order,  and 
with  head  winds  and  wet  and  foggy  weather,  the  voyage 
was  dangerously  prolonged.  The  passengers  were  put  on 
short  allowance  and  there  was  no  water.  It  is  even  said 
that  in  a  severe  storm  the  captain  and  crew  deserted  the 
vessel.  The  people  suffered  from  agonizing  thirst.  They 
even  talked  of  drawing  lots  to  see  who  should  be  put  to 
death  and  give  his  own  flesh  as  food  to  the  others. 

Mrs.  Duncan  was  then  a  woman  between  seventy  and 
eighty  years  of  age.  Late  tradition  says  the  lot  was  drawn 
and  she  drew  it  and  expected  to  be  a  victim.  Mr.  Cham- 
bers, though  often  referring  to  her  experiences  on  the  sea, 
makes  no  mention  of  the  lot  or  of  this  dire  extremity.  Go- 
ing into  her  cabin  she  gave  herself  to  prayer,  and  vowed  be- 

25 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

fore  God  that  if  He  would  avert  the  impending  blow  and  in 
mercy  save  her  life  and  the  ship's  company  she  would  for- 
ever consecrate  herself  and  all  that  she  had  to  His  service  ; 
that  she  would  erect  a  church  edifice  for  the  congregation 
of  the  Associate  Reformed  people  in  Philadelphia  with 
whom  she  worshipped,  and  that  she  would  give  and  educate 
her  little  grandson  for  the  Gospel  ministry. 

Not  long  after  this,  rain  fell,  and  the  agonizing  thirst  of 
those  in  the  ship  was  relieved.  Soon  the  shout,  "  sail  ho" 
was  heard  from  the  man  aloft.  A  vessel  hove  in  sight  and 
rescued  them  all.  The  ship  entered  the  Delaware  river  and 
all  reached  Philadelphia  in  safety, 

True  to  her  vows,  Margaret  Duncan  educated  her  grand- 
son John  Mason  Duncan  to  preach  the  good  news  of  God. 
Dying  Nov.  16th,  1802,  she  left  her  money  by  will  for  the 
erection  of  a  house  of  worship,  which  she  minutely  described, 
specifying  that  it  was  to  be  of  the  Associate  Reformed  com- 
munion. By  various  names,  the  "Margaret  Duncan 
Church,"  or  "  The  Vow  Church,"  or  "Saint  Margaret's 
Church,"  the  brick  edifice  on  Thirteenth  street  near  Filbert 
on  the  west  side,  stood  until  some  time  in  the  fifties.  I  can 
remember  as  a  little  boy  going  to  see  the  debris  of  the  ruins, 
the  piled  up  old  brick  partially  cleaned  of  mortar,  the  dust 
and  the  broken  bits  of  lime,  and  the  great  hollow  place 
where  the  cellar  had  been.  In  1875,  Mr.  Chambers  spoke  of 
"  the  little  church  where  we  worshipped  so  long.  .  .  It  is  a 
shame  that  the  church  was  ever  destroyed.  However  it 
was  torn  down,  and  we  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  it  ". 

His  was  the  language  of  affection.  As  matter  of  cold 
fact,  the  "house  was  of  plain  brick,  without  the  least  trace 
of  ornament  and  for  many  years  was  one  of  the  gloomiest 
looking  churches  in  the  city.  The  dimensions  were  fifty 
by  sixty  feet. ' '     The  edifice  was  opened  for  worship  on   the 

26 


REJECTED  OF  MEN 

26th  of  November,  1815.  The  dedication  sermon  was 
preached  by  the  son  of  the  vow,  and  the  grandson  of  her 
who  made  it,  Rev.  John  Mason  Duncan.  As  before  stated, 
Rev.  James  Gray,  D.D.,  then  with  Dr.  Wylie  at  the  head 
of  a  classical  school  in  Philadelphia,  also  took  part. 

Having  been  called  to  be  the  pastor  of  this  church,  Mr. 
Chambers  surveyed  his  field  to  see  what  resources  there 
were  for  sustaining  permanent  gospel  work.  He  found  no 
organized  effort.  There  was  no  prayer-meeting,  no  Sunday 
School,  not  a  man  to  lead  in  public  prayer,  and  the  three 
elders  were  all  superannuated.  The  congregation  was  made 
up  of  humble  people,  poor,  hard-working,  industrious,  with 
only  here  and  there  one  among  them  who  might  be  called 
rich  ;  nor  was  there  a  family  in  which  family  worship  was 
held.  It  was  necessary  therefore  that  the  young  man  from 
Baltimore,  who  did  not  know  ten  people  in  Philadelphia 
when  he  first  arrived,  should  borrow  two  devout  men,  Pres- 
byterians, Wilfrid  Hall  and  Hiram  Ayres,  to  help  him  in 
meetings  for  social  prayer.  He  then  made  application  to 
Mr.  Hall  for  the  use  of  a  room  on  Market  street  near  what 
is  now  Seventeenth,  in  a  district  of  vacant  lots.  Very  few 
people  were  then  living  west  of  Broad  street,  and  most  of 
the  streets  now  well  known  were  not  yet  "cut  through". 
He  knew  not  whether  any  one  would  come  to  the  meeting 
called  for  prayer,  but  God  gave  him  a  gracious  surprise. 
When  he  arrived  near  the  hour,  "  there  was  scarcely  a  spot 
for  a  human  being  to  stand  on".  There  and  then  began 
the  Holy  Spirit's  workings  which  resulted  in  a  whole  family 
of  Christian  churches. 

These  prayer  meetings  were  begun,  according  to  due 
announcement,  on  the  fourth  Sunday  in  May.  Their  good 
influences  were  seen  in  the  immediate  enlargement  of  the 
church  audience.      By  the  beginning  of  July,    there  were 

27 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

four  men  ready  to  speak  or  lead  in  prayer.  By  August  ist, 
over  forty  persons,  many  of  them  young  men  and  women, 
had  declared  their  faith  in  Christ,  and  were  ready  for 
Christian  work.  Mr.  Chambers  found  a  friend  in  Rev.  Dr. 
Stiles  Ely,  a  New  England  man,  the  principal  founder  of 
the  Jefferson  Medical  College,  and  editor  of  The  Philadel- 
phian.  From  1801  he  had  been  pastor  of  the  old  Pine  street 
Church,  and  was  at  that  time  moderator  of  the  Presbyterian 
General  Assembly.  As  Mr.  Chambers  was  not  yet  ordained, 
Dr.  Ely  preached  the  sermon  and  administered  the  Lord's 
Supper,  when  the  new  converts  were  received. 

As  Dr.  Chambers  told  the  story  in  1875,  "  The  next  move 
was  for  a  Sabbath  School,  and  the  marvel  was  with  what 
eagerness  they  took  hold  of  it  .  .  .  and  carried  it  on 
with  vigor,  procured  rooms  and  Sabbath  School  scholars 
and  teachers  and  entered  their  names,  and  we  went  on  and 
on  from  that  very  day  after  the  institution  of  the  prayer 
meeting,  and  the  consequence  was  that  we  very  soon  felt 
that  God  was  with  us  " . 

When  the  people  of  the  Ninth  Presbyterian,  or  Margaret 
Duncan  Church  on  Thirteenth  street,  met  together  to  vote  a 
call  to  John  Chambers,  it  was  under  the  care  of  the  First 
Presbytery  of  Philadelphia.  Of  course,  therefore,  the  call 
must  be  approved  at  the  regular  meeting  of  the  presbytery, 
and  only  after  the  usual  examination  of  the  candidate.  Mr. 
Chambers  came  on  from  Baltimore,  having  accepted  the 
call,  and  began  his  work  as  pastor  and  preacher-elect  on  the 
9th  day,  or  second  Sabbath,  in  May,  1825.  The  presbytery 
was  to  meet  in  October  in  its  semi-annual  gathering.  By  a 
strange  coincidence  this  was  at  Newtown,  near  the  Nesha- 
miny  stream,  in  Bucks  county,  Pa. — the  field  of  the  evan- 
gelical and  revival  labors  of  the  ancestor  of  his  betrothed,  of 
whom  more  anon.  Was  the  young  preacher's  imagination 
busy  with  the  scenes  of  a  century  before  ? 

28 


REJECTED  OF  MEN 

The  glories  of  autumn  made  lovely  the  landscape  of  this 
affluent  agricultural  county  lying  along  the  bend  of  the  Del" 
aware,  rich  in  fruit,  in  Pennsylvania  Germans,  in  English 
Quakers,  and  in  Scotch-Irish  people.  Its  name,  that  of 
Penn's  county  in  England,  is  suggestive  of  the  old  world, 
and  it  is  historically  famous  for  being  on  the  line  of  Wash- 
ington's march  to  his  great  victory  over  the  Hessians  at 
Trenton,  and  through  it  part  of  Sullivan's  men  had  moved 
for  the  chastisement  of  the  Iroquois  tribes  at  Newtown,  near 
Elmira,  N.  Y.,  in  1779.  Yet  the  historical  associations  up- 
permost in  the  mind  of  the  young  licentiate  must  have  been 
those  with  the  great-grandfather  of  his  betrothed,  who  in 
this  very  region  and  near  this  very  house  of  worship,  had 
labored  with  Gilbert  Tennant  in  the  gospel. 

The  young  minister's  call  and  the  letter  announcing  it, 
from  the  hands  of  the  elders  of  the  Ninth  Church,  Messrs. 
Ross,  Hogg,  and  Reed,  in  the  name  of  the  congregation, 
was  handed  in  to  the  assembled  authorities.  No  doubt  the 
document  was  on  genuine  honest  rag  paper,  the  only  kind 
then  known,  and  on  a  letter  sheet,  folded  and  dovetailed 
together  and  closed  with  sealing  wax  or  wafer,  without  an 
envelope,  directed  on  the  outside  and  carried  to  him  by 
stage  coach.  No  doubt  he  himself  had  to  go  to  the  office 
in  Baltimore  to  get  it.  In  compliance  with  its  request,  the 
young  licentiate's  journey  would  be  by  stage  through  Elk- 
ton  and  Wilmington  to  Philadelphia.  From  Philadelphia 
to  Newtown,  twenty-seven  miles  northeast  of  Philadelphia, 
the  route  would  probably  be  up  the  well-known  road  crossing 
the  Neshaminy  Creek. 

The  young  licentiate,  accustomed  to  do  his  own  thinking, 
appeared  with  clean  papers  from  the  Presbytery  of  Balti- 
more, and  asked  that  he  might  be  taken  under  the  care  of 
the  First  Presbytery  of  Philadelphia,  with  a  view  to  ordina- 

29 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

tion  and  installation  as  pastor  of  the  Ninth  Church.  Never- 
theless, although  he  might  be  punctual  and  his  papers  clean, 
Dame  Rumor  had  arrived  before  him.  Several  of  her 
thousand  tongues  had  declared,  and  even  asseverated 
vehemently,  that  John  Chambers  was  that  strange,  curious, 
and  ever-changing  thing  called  a  "heretic."  Often  that 
undefined  thing  is  a  babe  thrust  into  the  cradle,  while  the 
orthodoxy  of  yesterday  is  turned  out.  A  "  heretic,"  as 
Saint  Paul  was  once  called,  even  as  Jesus  was  before  him, 
is  very  apt  to  be  crucified  to-day  and  glorified  to-morrow. 
Indeed,  "heresy"  is  almost  as  protean  and  as  undefinable 
as  "orthodoxy"  itself.  We  shall  see  what  kind  of  a 
"heretic"  John  Chambers  was.  His  life  for  fifty  years 
revealed  the  reality. 

Within  that  little  company  gathered  at  Newtown  there 
was,  in  the  language  of  old  times  many  a  "  heresio-mastix  " 
or  scourger  of  heresy,  and  a  majority  of  the  ministers  pres- 
ent were  already  pre-determined  to  "  hereticate  "  the  young 
licentiate,  who  had  already  made  the  bounds  of  the  little 
brick  church  on  Thirteenth  street  too  small  to  hold  his 
hearers.  Nevertheless  our  sympathies  go  out  to  all  church 
bishops,  whose  duty  it  is  to  show  that  sudden  popularity  is 
no  proof  of  fitness  or  character. 

It  developed  during  the  examination  that  the  head  and 
front  of  the  young  man's  offending  was  his  belief  in  the 
Bible  as  an  all  sufficient  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  In  this 
position,  he  was  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the  Westminister 
standards,  the  Confession  of  Faith,  the  Larger  and  Shorter 
Catechisms,  teach  that  the  Bible  is  the  only  infallible  rule 
of  faith  and  obedience.  These  all  unite  in  declaring  that 
the  Scriptures  are  "given  by  inspiration  of  God  to  be  the 
rule  of  faith  and  life",  "the  rule  of  worship  ",  the  only 
rule  of  faith  and  obedience  ;  which  teach  "what  man  is  to 

30 


REJECTED  OF  MEN 

believe  concerning  God,  and  what  duty  God  requires  of 
man",  and  form  "the  rule  given  us  of  God  to  direct  us 
how  we  may  glorify  and  enjoy  Him." 

In  a  word,  to  an  independent  thinker,  loyal  to  the  Bible 
as  the  word  of  God,  as  John  Chambers  was,  the  West- 
minster standards  contain  their  own  reductio  ad  absurdum 
to  any  one  who  puts  creed,  catechism,  or  confession  above 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  or  who  makes  certain  parts,  or  even  a 
collection  of  parts,  greater  than  the  whole.  Mr.  Chambers, 
using  his  own  words,  believed  that  nothing  could  exceed 
infallibility,  and  was  therefore  satisfied  with  the  infallible 
rule  of  the  Scriptures.  There  was  not  then  the  freedom  of 
faith,  and  the  liberty  of  private  interpretation  of  Holy 
Scripture  and  the  Westminster  symbols  that  is  now  happily 
the  rule  in  the  Presbyterian  churches.  The  fault,  if  fault  it 
were,  was  not  solely  on  the  young  man's  part. 

The  eyes  of  the  ' '  fathers  and  brethren  ' '  were  opened  and 
the  "  heretic "  stood  revealed.  One  of  the  members,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Ely,  then  proposed  that  the  moderator  should  ask 
Mr.  Chambers  whether  at  the  time  of  his  licensure  he  sub- 
scribed to  the  Confession  of  Faith.  He  answered  that  he 
did  not.  When  the  second  question  was  proposed,  "Are 
you  prepared  to  do  so  now?"  he  answered  firmly,  "lam 
not". 

A  motion  was  then  made  by  Dr.  Ely  that  Mr.  Chambers 
and  his  papers  be  referred  back  to  the  Presbytery  of  Balti- 
more, and  that  the  pulpit  of  the  Ninth  Church  be  declared 
vacant.  Rev.  Messrs.  Patterson  and  Hoff  were  appointed  a 
committee  to  perform  the  duty. 

On  Thursday  evening  of  the  same  week,  which  was  the 
regular  evening  for  the  weekly  lecture,  the  committee  of  the 
Presbytery,  which  had  met  at  Newtown,  appeared  at  the 
church. 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Although  there  were  no  telegraphs  in  those  days,  it  was 
quickly  known  in  Philadelphia,  and  to  all  the  people  of  the 
Ninth  Church,  that  Mr.  Chambers,  the  man  whom  they  had 
learned  to  love,  had  been  rejected  by  the  Presbytery.  The 
preaching  of  the  young  minister  had  already  resulted,  under 
God,  in  a  deep  and  strong  religious  interest.  Consequently 
there  was  a  large  attendance  and  not  a  little  excitement  in 
the  little  brick  edifice,  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  some  of  the 
congregation  had  quietly  resolved  to  put  the  committee  out 
in  the  street  should  they  attempt  to  go  into  the  pulpit. 

Punctuality  with  the  young  pastor  had  already  settled 
into  what  proved  to  be  a  life-long  habit.  He  was  at  the 
church  in  good  season.  Finding  the  committee  already 
there,  he  explained  to  the  two  men  the  situation  and  told 
them  what  the  consequences  would  be  if  they  attempted  to 
fulfil  their  mission.  Happily,  however,  both  gentlemen 
being  more  concerned  with  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  than  about  obeying  the  letter  of  their  orders,  did  indeed 
go  into  the  pulpit,  but  it  was  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Cham- 
bers, who  made  them  his  firm  friends  for  life.  When  there 
they  cooperated  with  him,  assisting  to  conduct  the  services, 
and  not  a  word  was  said  about  the  pulpit  being  vacant. 
Thus  God,  through  his  servant,  quieted  the  Irishmen,  and 
then  and  there  magnified  this  man  who  had  a  genius  for 
friendship  and  was  an  expert  peace-maker  ;  all  of  which 
was  for  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  and  the  good  of  souls. 

As  days  passed  by,  the  people  of  the  congregation,  realiz- 
ing that  if  they  wanted  to  have  a  minister  they  would  have 
to  be  an  independent  church,  took  prompt  action.  After 
due  notice  had  been  given,  a  congregational  meeting  was 
held.  By  a  vote  of  four  to  one  the  people  declared  them- 
selves independent  of  all  church  courts,  with  only  Christ  as 
their  Master.  By  another  vote,  equally  large,  they  resolved 
to  retain  John  Chambers  as  their  minister. 

32 


REJECTED  OF  MEN 

The  minority,  led  by  Mr.  Moses  Reed,  one  of  the  elders, 
withdrew,  and  in  a  room  on  Race  street  organized  them- 
selves as  the  Ninth  Presbyterian  Church.  In  the  law  suit 
that  followed,  the  seceders  won  their  case.  With  the  edifice, 
given  up  in  1830,  went  the  possession  of  the  small  burying 
ground  on  Race  street,  above  Nineteenth,  in  which  sleeps  the 
dust  of  the  Ross  family  and  the  father  of  the  renowned 
soldier's  friend,  Miss  Anna  Ross,  whom  defenders  of  the 
Union  from  1861  to  1865,  and  the  survivors  of  the  Grand 
Army  remember  so  well.  In  the  writer's  memory  her  name 
and  face  are  not  forgotten,  for  she  was  his  Sunday  School 
teacher. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

NEW  ENGLAND.     ORDINATION  AT  NEW  HAVEN. 

In  Nevins'  Presbyterian  Encyclopedia,  which  contains  a 
brief  sketch  of  the  career  of  John  Chambers  and  a  wood-cut 
portrait  of  him  in  his  prime,  it  is  stated,  that  "  When  Mr. 
Duncan  about  this  time  renounced  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  into  which  the  Associate  Reformed, 
with  Dr.  Mason  and  others  had  been  merged,  Dr.  Chambers 
followed  his  example,  from  sympathy  with  his  teacher". 
Was  the  pupil's  "sympathy"  stronger  than  were  the 
preachers  convictions  ? 

Meanwhile  the  young  minister,  then  twenty-seven  years 
old,  returned  to  Baltimore  to  meet  the  Presbytery  and  seek 
ordination.  Here  again  another  obstacle  arose.  The  theo- 
logians on  the  Patapsco  declared  that  Mr.  Chambers  was  no 
longer  a  licentiate  under  their  care,  and  handed  him  back 
his  papers.  Again  was  John  Chambers  preacher  of  the 
gospel  rejected  of  men.  Was  ecclesiasticism  good  order  in 
this  case?  Did  the  true  cause  of  this  rather  rough  treat- 
ment lie  in  this,  that  he  had  been  a  pupil  of  John  Mason 
Duncan,  the  independent? 

What  should  the  young  man  do  ?  Disowned  of  presby- 
teries and  looked  at  supiciously  by  the  fathers  and  lords  in 
the  church,  where  should  he  go  ?  As  he  himself  wrote  on 
his  fiftieth  anniversary,  May  9th,  1875  : 

"The  prospect,  therefore,  was  rather  chilly.  I  had  left 
my  home  of  many  years  in  the  city  of  Baltimore,  where  I 
received  all  the  education  that  ever  was  bestowed  upon  me, 
and  where  I  sat  at  the  feet  of  that  Gamaliel,  the  Reverend 
John  Mason  Duncan,  to  whom  under  God,  I  am  indebted, 
entirely  by  His  grace,  for  the  position  I  occupy  to-day.    My 

34 


OR  DIN  A  TION  AT  NEW  HA  VEN 

heart  had  been  much  interested  in  religious  matters  for  two 
or  three  years  before  I  left  Baltimore.  There  were  five  or 
six  of  us  young  men,  as  students  of  Mr.  Duncan,  and  we 
had  organized  some  meetings  through  the  city  of  Baltimore, 
and  God  was  with  us  ;  and  the  warm  heart — if  I  had  any 
warm  heart  at  all — that  I  brought  to  Philadelphia,  was 
kindled  at  the  altar  of  those  dear  young  brethren.  How 
much  we  are  indebted  to  God  for  young  men  !  How  much, 
my  brethren,  are  the  eldership,  are  you,  am  I,  indebted  to 
young  men  !  "  Dr.  Chambers's  last  words  in  this  paragraph 
are  especially  appropriate,  because  it  is  the  tendency  of  most 
theologians  and  elderly  men  to  teach  that  God  was,  not  that 
he  is.  With  young  men,  God's  existence  is  more  likely  to 
be  in  the  present  tense. 

The  ecclesiastical  orphan,  thus  cast  fatherless  and  friend- 
less uoon  the  wide  world,  began  to  inquire  whither  he 
should  go  to  seek  ordination.  Happily  there  were  other 
bodies  of  Christians  and  a  living  church  of  Christ,  besides 
the  one  which  had  withheld  its  blessing.  Happily  too, 
there  were  men  in  the  Presbyterian  Churches  of  Philadel- 
phia, warm  friends,  who  were  able  to  direct  him  wisely,  one 
of  them  being  the  large-hearted  scholar,  James  Patriot 
Wilson,  D.D.,  pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church, 
predecessor  of  Albert  Barnes,  and  then  fifty-six  years  old. 
The  other  was  Rev.  Thomas  Harvey  Skinner,  D.D.,  pastor 
of  the  Fifth  Presbyterian  Church  in  Locust  street,  and  who, 
twenty-six  years  afterwards,  became  the  famous  professor  in 
Union  Theological  Seminary  of  New  York  City.  Both  of 
these  men  were  in  hearty  sympathy  with  those  views  of 
truth  afterwards  called  the  "New  School".  These 
brethren  with  Dr.  Duncan,  advised  Mr.  Chambers  to  go  into 
Yankee  land  and  there  be  ordained  by  Congregational 
clergymen.     They  gave  him  letters  of  introduction  to  the 

35 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Rev.  Nathaniel  W.  Taylor,  the  famous  exponent  of  "the 
new  divinity"  and  then  of  the  theological  department  of 
Yale  College. 

It  was  not  Presbyterianism  only  that  was  at  this  era  being 
rocked  on  the  waves  of  progress  by  the  gales  of  the  Spirit. 
About  this  time,  or  shortly  afterwards,  Connecticut  Congre- 
gationalism was  being  excited  and  lifted  out  of  torpor  and 
routine  by  the  breezy  discussions  of  "  Taylorism  "  and 
"Tylerism".  The  former  expressed  the  views  of  Dr. 
Nathaniel  William  Taylor,  the  successor  of  Moses  Stuart, 
and  then  holding  the  Dwight  professorship  in  the  Theologi- 
cal Department  of  Yale  College.  The  young  seminary 
opened  in  1822  was  therefore  but  three  years  old  when  Mr. 
Chambers  appeared  to  be  ordained.  Whatever  may  be  the 
true  label  we  put  upon  Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor,  he  was  one  of  the 
greatest  of  America's  theologians  when  the  appeal  was  be- 
ing taken  from  Calvin  to  Christ.  He  taught  a  modification 
of  Hopkinsism  which  many  Presbyterians  regarded  as  hos- 
tile to  Calvinism  and  many  NewKnglandersas  "  unsound". 
As  Mr.  Chambers  had  already  done,  Dr.  Taylor  repudiated 
the  words  ' '  predestinate  ' '  and  ' '  decreed  ' '  and  used  the 
word  "purposed"  concerning  God's  desire  to  save  men. 
Before  he  died,  in  1858,  he  had  trained  over  seven  hundred 
ministers.  Ex-President  Dwight,  in  his  recent  book  on 
Men  and  Memories  of  Yale,  presents  him  felicitously  in 
word  and  picture. 

About  the  time  also  of  rising  "Taylorism"  the  new 
methods  of  preaching  and  revival  used  by  Rev.  C.  G.  Fin- 
ney, afterwards  president  of  Oberlin  College,  excited  much 
alarm  among  the  men  of  the  old  school.  How  strange  are 
the  variations  and  how  curious  is  the  progress  of  orthodoxy  ! 
Most  of  the  great  revivalists  of  this  country  were  nourished 
in  the  Congregational  churches  ;  and,  from  Finney  to 
Moody,  they  were  at  first  looked  upon  with  suspicion.    Later 

36 


OR  DIN  A  TION  A  T  NE  W  HA  VEN 

they  were  welcomed  and  lauded  as  the  saviors  of  orthodoxy. 
Veril}-  the  "  earthen  vessel  "  is  sometimes  more  in  evidence 
than  the  "heavenly  treasure". 

To  combat  the  views  of  Dr.  Taylor,  Dr.  Bennett  Tyler, 
ex-president  of  Dartmouth  College,  and  then  pastor  at  Port- 
land, Me.,  was  hailed  as  the  champion  by  all  the  leading 
spirits  among  the  "conservatives",  though  both  of  these 
great  teachers  had  modified  the  original  Calvinism.  Of  Dr. 
Tyler  it  has  been  well  said  that  "  In  forming  his  system  he 
began  not  with  mind,  but  with  the  Bible,  and  he  looked  for 
no  advances  in  theology  except  such  as  come  from  a  richer 
Christian  experience".  Dr.  Tyler  founded  a  theological 
institute  at  Hast  Windsor,  Conn.,  in  1834,  so  long  and  ably 
presided  over  by  the  cultured  Philadelphian,  Chester  D. 
Hartranft,  D.D.,  brother  of  Pennsylvania's  soldier  and  gov- 
ernor. 

The  monuments  of  these  controversies  between  ' '  Taylor- 
ism  "  and  "Tylerism",  now  forgotten,  are  seen  in  the 
superb  theological  seminaries  of  New  Haven  and  Hartford, 
but  the  points  of  difference,  as  now  discoverable  only  under 
the  microscope  of  research,  are  of  no  practical  importance. 
Hardly  any  one  except  the  hair-splitting  philosophers  can 
state  them.  They  have  been  forgotten  in  the  larger  vision 
of  advancing  Christianity.  So  will  it  be  with  most  of  the 
controversies  of  to-day,  especially  those  centering  in  the 
"  higher  criticism  ". 

It  was  to  Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor,  that  Mr.  Chambers  had 
letters,  as  well  as  to  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon,  afterwards  the 
famous  opponent  of  slavery,  and  author,  in  1833  of  the 
hymn, 

' '  O  God  beneath  thy  guiding  hand 
Our  exiled  fathers  crossed  the  sea, 
And  when  they  trod  the  wintry  strand 

With  prayer  and  psalm  they  worshipped  thee." 

37 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

For  over  twenty  years  Dr.  Bacon  was  pastor  of  the  First 
Congregational  Church  in  New  Haven,  one  of  the  profes- 
sors in  Yale  Divinity  School,  and  the  progenitor  of  a  re- 
markably intellectual  family.  Until  his  death,  the  day  be- 
fore Christmas  of  1881,  he  was  a  commanding  figure  in 
American  history.  Of  the  council  which  ordained  Mr. 
Chambers  he  was  the  scribe.  It  will  be  seen  at  a  glance 
that  the  ecclesiastical  exile  from  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore 
was  to  stand  before  giants.  If  these  mighty  men  of  God 
could  give  him  ordination,  why  need  he  mourn  the  loss  of 
clerical  favor  nearer  home  ? 

Thus  armed  with  letters  of  commendation,  the  young 
Irish-American  proceeded  to  the  City  of  Elms,  in  the  open- 
ing week  of  December,  1825.  It  was  the  first  year  of  John 
Quincy  Adams's  administration,  and  the  Erie  Canal  had 
joined  the  waters  of  the  great  lakes  with  the  Atlantic.  It 
was  an  era  of  mighty  conquests  over  nature,  and  the  heart 
of  the  young  man  who  was  thrilling  with  the  spirit  of  the 
age  and  of  the  ages,  beat  high  with  hope.  He,  too,  wanted 
to  do  great  things  for  God  and  help  in  making  the  world 
better.  He  sought  out  those  addressed,  and  handed  to  them 
his  letters.  Two  days  afterwards,  the  Association  of  Con- 
gregational ministers  of  the  Western  District  of  New  Haven 
County  was  called  together  by  the  Moderator,  and  eight 
ministers  were  present  in  the  assembly  which  was  held  in 
the  Centre  Church. 

Of  the  meeting,  the  following  official  record  was  copied  out 
for  the  biographer,  at  the  request  of  Rev.  Dr.  T.  T.  Munger, 
author  of  The  Freedom  of  Faith,  and  through  the  courtesy 
of  Rev.  Franklin  Dexter,  librarian  of  Yale  University. 

"  At  a  Special  Meeting  of  the  Association  of  the  Western 
District  of  New  Haven  County,  convened  by  letters  from 
the  Moderator  and  holden  in  New  Haven,  December  7th, 
1825. 

38 


ORDINA  TION  A  T  NE  W  HA  VEN 

Present— Messrs.  S.  W.  Stebbins,  J.  Day,  D.D.,  E.  Scran- 
ton,  S.  Merwin,  J.  Allen,  E.  T.  Fitch  and  L-  Bacon. 

Mr.  Stebbins  was  chosen  Moderator,  and  Mr.  Bacon, 
Scribe.     The  session  was  opened  with  prayer. 

Mr.  John  Chambers,  a  licentiate  of  the  late  second  Presby- 
tery of  Philadelphia,  now  dissolved,  being  introduced  to  the 
Association  by  Mr.  Merwin,  requested  to  be  ordained  to  the 
ministry  of  the  Gospel,  and  producing  proper  testimonials 
of  his  standing  as  a  member  of  the  church  of  Christ  ;  of  his 
regular  license  to  preach  the  Gospel,  and  of  his  having 
passed  through  a  period  of  probation,  with  proper  accept- 
ance, the  Association,  after  examining  him  as  to  his  belief 
in  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  his  experimental  acquaint- 
ance with  religion,  and  his  motives  in  desiring  the  work  of 
the  ministry, 

Voted  to  proceed  to  his  ordination  this  evening  at  half- 
past  six  o'clock. 

Voted  that  the  parts  be  performed  as  follows  :  The  intro- 
ductory prayer  to  be  offered  by  Mr.  Scranton  ;  the  sermon 
to  be  preached  by  Professor  Fitch  ;  the  ordaining  prayer  to 
be  offered  by  Mr.  Merwin,  during  which  Messrs.  Stebbins, 
Fitch  and  Merwin  to  impose  hands  ;  the  charge  to  be  given 
by  Mr.  Stebbins  ;  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  by  Mr. 
Bacon  ;  the  concluding  prayer  to  be  offered  by  Mr.  Allen. 
Adjourned  to  meet  in  the  Centre  Meeting-house  at  half-past 
six  o'clock. 

Met  according  to  adjournment.  The  ordination  took  place 
according  to  the  preceding  votes. 

Mr.  Chambers,  at  his  request,  was  admitted  a  member  of 
the  Association. 

The  minutes  were  read  and  accepted. 

[Test]  Leonard  Bacon,  Scribe." 

The  ordination  sermon  was  duly  preached  in  the  evening 
by  the  Rev.  Professor   Eleazer  T.  Fitch,  D.D.,  Livingstone 

39 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Professor  of  Divinity  in  Yale  College,  and  then  Mr.  Cham- 
bers was  ordained  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  of  the  three  ap- 
pointed ministers  of  the  Association. 

According  to  Congregational  usage  an  Association  of  min- 
isters does  not  ordain  to  the  ministry,  but  a  Council  does. 
The  Association  may  transform  itself  into  a  Council  for  the 
time  being.  In  Connecticut  the  Consociation,  or  standing 
council,  performed  this  function.  In  any  event,  John  Cham- 
bers was  properly  ordained  to  the  Gospel  ministry  according 
to  due  Congregational  call,  form,  and  precedent. 

Furthermore,  by  his  own  request,  he  became  a  member  of 
the  Association.  This  did  not  make  him  a  "  Congregation- 
alist",  but  it  showed  his  hearty  sympathy  with  the  princi- 
ples and  ideas  of  his  fellow  members.  For  forty-eight  years, 
his  only  ministerial  standing  and  connection  was  in  the  Con- 
gregational body  as  an  independent  minister,  though  his 
church  was  governed  according  to  Presbyterian  form  and 
usage.  So  strong  and  deep  was  his  faith  in  the  validity  of 
non-Episcopal  and  non-Presbyterian  ordination  that  he 
showed  it  all  his  life  by  his  works.  He  ordained  during  the 
course  of  his  ministry  several  young  men  to  the  work  of  the 
gospel.  One  of  these  impressive  ceremonies  I  myself  wit- 
nessed, probably  about  1859.  After  preaching  a  sermon 
and  reading  the  papers  or  certificates  of  the  candidate,  Mr. 
Chambers  called  his  elders,  those  grand  men  of  God,  Burtis, 
Luther,  Steinmetz,  and  Walton  around  him.  Then  upon 
the  head  of  the  kneeling  young  man  he  and  they  laid  their 
hands,  solemnly  ordaining  him  to  the  gospel  in  true  apos- 
tolic style. 

Years  afterwards,  in  1892,  one  of  his  own  boys,  even  the 
biographer,  delivered  the  Dudleian  lecture  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity in  Appleton  Chapel  on  ' '  The  Validity  of  non- 
Episcopal  Ordination",   or,   more  exactly,   the  validity  of 

40 


ORDINA  TION  AT  NEW  HA  VEN 

ordination  by  the  congregation,  according  to  the  method  of 
the  primitive  Christian  Churches1.  By  a  strange  coinci- 
dence, it  was  on  the  same  night,  Dec.  7,  on  which  Mr. 
Chambers  was  ordained,  and  thus  the  sixty-seventh  anni- 
versary of  his  ordination. 

Mr.  Chambers  left  New  Haven  the  next  morning,  Dec. 
8th,  1825.  The  elms  were  leafless,  but  his  heart  was  happy 
and  his  face  radiant  with  joy.  Coming  back  to  minister  to 
his  constantly  increasing  flock,  he  baptized  on  the  first  Sun- 
da3r  in  January,  1826,  several  new  communicants  and  ad- 
ministered for  the  first  time  the  memorial  supper  of  Jesus. 
It  was  a  day  long  to  be  remembered,  for  between  seventy 
and  eighty  souls  were  on  this  occasion  added  to  the  church, 
and  the  young  pastor,  in  the  joy  of  his  initial  service, 
baptized  the  first  child  that  ever  received  the  dedicating 
waters  from  his  hands,  John  Chambers  Arrison,  the  first  of 
a  mighty  host. 

In  1875,  the  white-haired  pastor  who  had  welcomed  3,585 
members  into  his  church,  said  :  "  Thus  it  seemed  that  the 
tide  of  God's  favor  was  taken  at  the  flood,  and  it  has 
brought  us  to  where  we  are  to-day  ' ' . 

1  See  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  for  October,  1893. 


41 


CHAPTER  VII. 

HOME  AND  CHURCH.     LOVE  AND  WORK. 

Let  us  now  look  into  John  Chambers's  inner  life, — of  the 
heart  as  well  as  the  intellect.  We  have  seen  how  the 
vigorous  and  lusty  twig  which  grew  up  in  the  classical 
academy  of  Baltimore  began  to  bend  away  from  certain 
statements  and  formulse  in  the  Westminster  symbols,  as 
the?i  interpreted  to  him,  which  gave  the  afterwards  robust 
and  widespreading  tree  a  tremendous  inclination.  "As  a 
man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he."  John  Chambers's 
convictions  shaped  his  message  and  colored  all  his  preach- 
ing. There  were  probably  reasons,  other  than  those  merely 
intellectual,  for  the  young  man's  tremendous  antipathy  to 
the  idea  that  the  fullness  of  the  Christian  life  and  the 
message  of  Jesus  could  be  compressed  into  the  mathemati- 
cal statements  made  at  Westminster  during  the  days  of  the 
British  Commonwealth. 

When  I  was  a  student  at  Rutgers  College,  New  Bruns- 
wick, New  Jersey,  from  1865  to  1869,  I  was  asked,  as  an  in- 
coming freshman,  by  the  president,  Rev.  William  H.  Camp- 
bell, D.D.,  L,L.D.,  concerning  my  religious  training.  I  told 
him  how  much  I  owed  to  John  Chambers  in  Philadelphia. 
A  bland  light  overspread  the  full  expanse  of  that  face,  so 
seamed  with  thought  and  studious  toil  and  which  nothing 
but  warm  affection  could  call  handsome.  Indeed,  it  seemed 
as  though  every  wrinkle  was  smoothed  out,  as  a  prairie-like 
smile  suffused  its  whole  area.  Then,  laughing  heartily,  he 
said,  "  Well,  I  can  remember  when  he  had  orthodoxy 
taught  him  with  the  sole  of  a  slipper."  Evidently  then, 
according  to  the  accepted  and  supposedly  wholesome  cus- 
tom of  the  times,  the  future  preacher  received  at  intervals 

42 


HOME  AND  CHURCH 

what  was  expected  to  be  a  physical  aid  to  faith,  though  in 
reality  the  result  was  the  reverse  of  what  was  expected. 
Whether  the  slipper  was  applied  to  the  lad  before  or  after 
intellectual  defection,  its  use  induced  reaction.  Whether, 
as  is  probable,  the  correction  by  leather  came  from  the  em- 
ployer to  whom  the  apprentice  was  bound,  or  from  the 
schoolmaster  is  not  known.  The  boy  would  not  accept 
Westminsterism  whole,  certainly  not  as  then  interpreted. 

Above  all,  this  young  Irish- American  lad  had  a  big,  warm 
heart.  As  he  read  the  Scriptures  for  himself  he  was  early 
filled  with  that  idea,  which  afterwards  he  infused  into  the 
lives  of  thousands,  that  the  gospel  is  a  glorious  message  to 
the  individual,  that  the  Christian  life  is  a  Way,  as  well  as  a 
belief,  that  there  are  elements  in  religious  life  and  experi- 
ence which  do  not  submit  to  exact  definitions,  and  that  the 
mercy  of  God  is  the  largest  factor  of  the  Divine  life  toward 
wrong-doing  man.  In  this  the  time  of  his  youth,  as  well  as 
all  through  his  life,  he  felt  deeply  rather  than  thought 
coolly.  Whether  we  must  ascribe  most  or  all  of  the  results 
to  the  towering  personality  of  his  teacher,  John  Mason 
Duncan,  and  of  his  long  continued  training  at  a  most  sus- 
ceptible age  under  so  forceful  a  master,  certainly,  whatever 
our  philosophy  of  the  known  facts  may  be,  he  was  filled 
with  an  antipathy  to  creeds.  In  a  time  and  climate  of  theo- 
logical severity,  and  amid  the  rancor  of  controversy,  he  was, 
among  his  clerical  brethren  who  set  higher  value  than  he 
did,  upon  "the  form  of  sound  words  "  or  logical  formulas, 
verily  a  pilgrim  and  stranger  upon  the  earth.  He  rejoiced 
to  see  by  faith  the  day  we  live  in,  even  the  work  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  and  of  the  Synods  and  Presbyteries  of  1903. 

Ever  hoping  and  praying  for  the  day  to  come  when  the 
creeds,  especially  of  the  Presbyterian  body  of  churches,  in 
which  he  had  been  educated,  would  be  revised,  he  lived  and 

43 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

"  died  in  faith,  not  having  received  the  promises,  but  having 
seen  them  and  greeted  them  from  afar".  The  change  of 
theological  climate,  the  revision  of  the  Westminster  symbols 
and  the  simplification  of  theology  into  which  we,  in  this 
twentieth  century  have  come,  even  the  work  of  the  General 
Assembly,  that  met  in  New  York  in  1902,  and  in  Los 
Angelos  in  1903,  was  what  he  in  hope  long  ago  looked  for. 
He  believed  in  expressing  forms  of  faith  in  the  language  of 
living  men,  not  of  dead  ones,  for  he  ever  taught  not  only 
that  God  was,  but  that  He  is. 

To  recapitulate,  John  Chambers  left  the  classical  academy 
in  18 18,  after  five  years'  instruction.  He  remained  seven 
years  longer  in  Baltimore,  active  in  church  life  and  work. 
During  this  time,  he  was  occupied  also  in  business,  thus 
earning  his  livelihood,  for  he  had  learned  the  trade  of  a 
jeweler.  During  these  years,  his  life  was  made  rich  and 
joyous  by  one  who  had  crossed  his  path,  and  who  was  to 
be  to  him  his  beloved  wife,  Miss  Helen  McHenry.  She  was 
the  first  of  three  noble  specimens  of  womanhood  who  were 
to  light  his  household  fire,  irradiate  his  home,  double  and 
share  his  joys  and  sorrows.  How  often  and  how  tenderly 
did  ' '  our  pastor' '  refer  to  ' '  the  partner  of  his  life  ' ' ,  the 
beloved  "companion  of  his  bosom!"  What  a  refining 
power,  what  a  potent  influence,  stimulating  to  marital 
purity  and  mutual  "  love  that  lightens  all  distress",  was  his 
steadfast  example.  It  was  his  frequent  felicitous  use  of 
passages  from  the  Song  of  Songs,  that  so  impressed  one 
boy's  mind  that,  despite  his  vow,  registered  in  college, 
never  to  write  a  ' '  commentary  " ,  he  composed  and  published 
11  The  Lily  Among  Thorns  ".* 

Let  us  look  at  the  heredity  of  his  affianced.  As  early 
as  J735>    Francis   McHenry,    an   ordained   minister   of  the 

1  The  Lily  Among  Thorns.  A  Study  of  the  Biblical  Drama  entitled 
The  Song  of  Songs.     Boston,  1889. 

44 


HOME  AND  CHURCH 

Presbyterian  church  came  from  Ireland  to  America  and  was 
associated  with  Gilbert  Tennant  in  the  Deep  Run,  or 
Neshaminy,  churches  in  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania,  and 
also  in  the  beginnings  of  the  Log  College,  which  by  direct 
evolution  became  the  great  Princeton  University. 

His  grandson  was  Francis  Dean  McHenry,  a  shipping 
merchant  of  Baltimore,  whose  daughter  Helen  was  born  in 
September,  1805,  when  the  boy  in  Ohio  was  nearly  seven 
years  old.  When  he  met  her  in  Baltimore,  he  had  the 
lover's  "three  T's"  or  elements  of  success — propinquity, 
opportunity,  and  importunity.  Those  who  knew  John 
Chambers  in  later  life  will  not  marvel  why  he  won  her, 
rather  might  they  wonder  how  any  maiden  could  resist  the 
urgency  of  the  warm  hearted  and  handsome  youth,  who 
was  the  largest  and  handsomest  of  the  Chambers  family. 
As  matter  of  fact,  she  made  capitulation  in  due  time  and 
was  led  to  the  altar. 

It  was  but  a  very  short  time  after  John  Chambers  had 
reached  the  first  stadium  in  his  successful  career  and  was  an 
ordained  minister,  that  the  marriage  took  place  in  Baltimore, 
March  14th,  1826. 

The  young  preacher  brought  his  bride  to  Philadelphia 
and  enjoyed  just  three  years  and  six  months  of  wedded  hap- 
piness with  the  companion  of  his  youth.  Those  who  re- 
member Mrs.  Chambers  speak  of  her  beauty  and  animation, 
and  of  her  whole-hearted  sympathy  with  her  husband's 
work,  but  her  life  was  destined  to  be  brief.  The  first  child 
born  of  the  union  was  John  Mason  Duncan  Chambers,  whom 
the  happy  father  joyfully  named  after  his  spiritual  father, 
under  whom  his  soul  life  had  opened  and  ripened  in  Balti- 
more. His  second  child,  a  daughter,  Helen  Frances  Cham- 
bers, now  Mrs.  James  Hackett,  living  at  Pomfret  Centre, 
Conn.,  still  survives  him. 

45 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

John  Mason  Duncan  Chambers,  born  March  15,  1827, 
married  Miss  Emma  Ward  of  Winchester,  Virginia,  in  Oc- 
tober, 1851.  He  died  November,  1857,  leaving  three  chil- 
dren, of  whom  Helen  McHenry  is  the  only  survivor.  She 
is  married  to  Mr.  George  Lothrop  Bradley,  of  Pomfret  Cen- 
tre, Conn.,  and  Washington,  D.  C. 

Helen  Frances  Chambers,  born  April  25,  1829,  was  mar- 
ried July  17,  1849,  to  Mr.  James  Hackett,  of  Baltimore. 
Their  one  surviving  child,  Helen  McHenry  Hackett,  mar- 
ried George  F.  Miles.  With  Mrs.  Hackett,  these  two 
grandchildren  are  the  only  descendants  of  John  Chambers. 

The  pastor,  elect  and  ordained,  brought  his  bride  to  Phil- 
adelphia and  took  a  house  on  Thirteenth  street,  below  Wal- 
nut, and  there  began  his  home.  Being  on  the  same  street 
as  his  church,  he  had  not  been  many  months  at  work  be- 
fore scores  of  people  living  on  Thirteenth,  or  streets  parallel 
and  crossing  it,  were  attracted  to  become  worshippers  with 
him  as  their  pastor.  As  one  lady,  still  lovely  in  her  eighty 
years  of  life,  tells  the  story  from  girlhood's  memories,  the 
"  Chamberites  ",  as  they  were  at  first  called,  were  every 
Sunday  morning  seen  to  be  moving  wTith  their  faces  set 
northward  toward  "the  Church  of  the  Vow7";  and  the 
preacher,  being  from  the  first  the  soul  of  promptness,  "led 
the  procession  ' ' . 

Between  Thirteenth  and  Broad  streets  and  Walnut  and 
Locust,  had  grown  up  "  the  Village ",  where  for  lack  of 
accommodation  in  the  church  edifice,  the  Sunday  School 
was  established.  On  Sabbath  afternoons,  the  whole  school 
adjourned  bodily  to  the  church,  walking  up  Thirteenth 
street  to  Filbert. 

Yet  even  with  a  growing  Sunday  School  and  enlarging 
church  membership,  the  way  of  the  young  pastor  was  far 
from  smooth,  and  the  First  Independent  Church  of  Phila- 

46 


HOME  AND  CHURCH 

delphia  was  in  no  danger  of  being  smothered  with  kindness. 
Almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  an  industrious  army  of  pro- 
phets arose  to  foretell  failure  to  a  church  founded  on  the 
Bible  alone.  Rather,  instead  of  "prophets",  we  should 
say  a  busy  host  of  fortune-tellers,  since  the  Hebrew  and 
Biblical  word,  prophet,  does  not  mean  predicter,  but  the 
utterer  of  truth.  The  little  ecclesiastical  infant,  rather 
foundling,  needed  much  warmth  of  prayer  and  devotion, 
certainly  during  its  first  decade.  With  shakings  of  the 
head  and  emphatic  use  of  the  hands  in  dreadful  warning  of 
calamity,  the  Philadelphia  variety  of  soothsayers  declared 
that  in  two  or  three  years,  the  First  Independent  Church 
would  go  to  pieces.  Both  laymen  and  ministers  were  loud 
in  declaring  that  such  a  church,  without  a  "  creed,"  (though 
the  Bible  is  a  very  library  of  creeds),  could  not  thrive  or 
live.  The  idea  of  success  in  rearing  a  church,  with  the 
Holy  Scriptures  only  as  a  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  was 
scoffed  at.  In  our  day,  it  does  indeed  seem  strange  that 
Protestant  ministers  should  so  talk,  but  experience,  the 
great  teacher,  showed    "the  divine  sufficiency  of  the  Bible 

as  a  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  and also  a  bond  of 

union  holding  together  a  large  and  flourishing  congregation 
in  Christian  love  and  harmony  ".  So  wrote  John  Chambers 
in  1859. 

However,  "liberal",  or,  rather  scriptural,  in  his  theo- 
logical opinions,  the  young  minister  was,  since  especially 
he  cared  nothing  for  any  man's  boasted  "predestination" 
or  "  election  "  to  eternal  life,  unless  that  same  man  showed 
the  fruits  of  faith  in  holy  living,  he  was  anything  but  liberal 
in  his  ideas  of  morals,  or  as  related  to  amusements,  or  the 
keeping  of  the  Christian  day  of  rest.  We  shall  see  this 
clearly  when  we  note  how  he  dealt  with  one  of  his  theatre- 
going  elders. 

47 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

In  his  fortieth  anniversary  sermon,  May  14th,  1865, 
which  was  printed,  Mr.  Chambers  referred  to  this  experi- 
ence, stating  that  during  the  two-score  years  of  his  ministry 
no  word  of  disagreement,  or  of  an  unpleasant  character  with 
his  fellow-presbyters,  had  ever  been  spoken,  with  the  excep- 
tion that  we  are  about  to  describe,  and  which,  in  order  to 
make  a  perfectly  correct  record,  Mr.  Chambers  himself 
would  not  omit. 

Shortly  after  administering  his  first  communion,  the  young 
pastor  found  that  "  one  of  the  original  elders  was  in  the 
habit  of  attending  theatrical  amusements  and  of  taking  his 
children  with  him  ".  What  resulted  from  this  discovery  is 
given  in  his  own  words  : 

"  This  conduct  was  so  directly  in  opposition  to  what  were 
then  my  convictions  of  what  was  right,  and  which  opinion  I 
still  hold — so  directly  in  the  face  of  the  teachings  of  the 
Bible,  that  I  could   not   remain   silent   under  it,  but  at  once 

sought  Mr.  ,   in  order  that  we  might  have  a  mutual 

explanation  of  our  views.  Upon  my  putting  the  question  to 
him,  as  to  whether  he  thought  his  course  was  a  proper  one — 
whether  it  was  the  love  of  Christ  which  induced  him  to  fre- 
quent such  places,  and  if  in  so  doing  he  was  bringing  up  his 
children  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord  by  mak- 
ing them  his  companions  on  such  occasions,  I  found  that  he 
was  obstinate  in  his  determination  to  adhere  to  his  own 
course  of  action.  I  referred  him  to  Second  Corinthians,  sixth 
chapter,  fourteenth  to  eighteenth  verse,  and  then  told  him 
that  I  could  not  and  would  not  serve  with  him  in  the  Ses- 
sion ;  that  either  he  or  I  must  resign,  and  proposed  that  it 
should  be  left  to  the  vote  of  the  Church.  If  the  Church  ad- 
vocated or  permitted  indulgence  in  theatrical  amusements, 
if  it  was  considered  a  means  of  grace  and  the  proper  school 
in  which  children  were  to  be   trained  up  for  God,  there  was 

48 


JOHN  CHAMBERS. 
About  1856. 


HOME  AND  CHURCH 

but  one  path  for  me  to  pursue — to  dissolve  my  connection 
with  them  at  once.     If  on  the  contrary  they  sustained  me  in 

my  views,   Mr.   must  resign.     He  was  unwilling  to 

submit  the  matter  to  the  vote  of  the  congregation,  knowing 
only  too  well  that  their  standard  of  piety  was  a  high  one, 
and  that  his  conduct  would  meet  with  their  severe  displeas- 
ure. Consequently  he  resigned  his  office  of  elder  in  the 
spring  of  1826,  and  from  that  day  to  this  neither  elder  nor 
lay  member  has  advocated  visits  to  the  theatre  as  the  way  to 
heaven,  and  I  am  sure  with  the  Bible  as  their  rule  of  life, 
never  will  ". 

It  soon  became  very  evident  that  the  young  minister  and 
his  people  were  Separatists  of  a  strict  sort.  They  believed 
in  being  "in  the  world",  but  not  "  of  the  world  ".  The 
passages  in  Corinthians  which  had  been  quoted,  "Where- 
fore come  out  from  among  them  and  be  3'e  separate  ",  was 
one  on  which  the  pastor  preached  many  times  in  the  course 
of  his  ministry.  His  insistence  was  from  the  first  that 
Christian  people  ought  to  find  their  enjoyment  in  religion 
and  be  visibly  different  from  those  who  had  no  scruples 
against  cards,  dancing,  gaming,  or  the  theatre. 

Was  not  John  Chambers  right  ?  He  had  a  just  fear  of 
the  real  influence  of  these  methods  of  killing  time.  Further- 
more, those  who  can  remember  the  Chestnut  street,  of  even 
as  late  as  the  sixties,  need  not  wonder  at  his  earnest  and 
pointed  preaching — for  every  sermon-bullet  of  John  Cham- 
bers hit  the  target,  and  usually  the  bull's  eye.  In  language 
not  to  be  mistaken  and  often  with  tears,  he  called  upon 
young  men  and  women  to  rise  upon  higher  levels  into  a 
more  spiritual  life  than  was  then  common.  A  realistic 
description  of  the  vice,  that  openly  flaunted  itself  on  Phila- 
delphia's gayest  street,  would  not  here  be  in  good  taste,  or 
be  relished  if  given  ;  but  it  was  something  horrible. 
4  49 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Whether  the  world,  on  the  whole,  is  getting  better  or  worse, 
it  is  quite  certain  that  the  houses  of  ill-fame,  the  midnight 
street-walkers  and  the  pictures  once  visible  in  public  places 
and  in  the  saloons,  inexpressibly  obscene  as  they  were,  are 
not  found  at  the  present  time,  or  if  so,  are  much  more  con- 
cealed, for  they  have  at  least  been  driven  to  cover.  It 
seemed  to  be  the  idea  of  the  young  minister  that  he  ought 
to  know  what  was  going  on  in  the  world,  and  to  teach  his 
people  to  know,  while  yet  choosing  the  pure,  and  avoiding 
the  impure.  He  was  liberal  enough  in  his  attitude  to  his 
brethren  of  other  names,  always  working  with  them  in 
practical  religion. 

Some  of  the  years  of  his  first  marriage  were  spent  on 
Arch  street,  near  13th  street.  In  later  years  he  lived  on 
Walnut  above  Broad  on  the  south  side.  From  about  the 
time  of  "the  war"  and  until  his  death,  he  dwelt  at  the 
corner  of  12th  and  Girard  street  north  of  Chestnut.  Thus 
his  whole  pastoral  life  was  spent  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
city,  seeing  things  as  they  were,  and  with  his  eyes  open  to 
the  manner  in  which  the  people  amused  themselves. 


50 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

"THE  WAR  HORSE  OF  THE  TEMPERANCE  CAUSE." 

A  large  number,  and  probabl}-  a  majority  of  the  large 
congregation  which  soon  gathered  around  John  Chambers, 
were  people  from  Scotland  or  Scottish-Ireland,  and,  like 
most  of  this  sturdy  race,  were  very  fond  of  both  religion 
and  whiskey.  The  customs  of  society  in  the  thirties  made 
the  social  glass  very  frequent.  The  chief  decoration  of  the 
sideboard  was  usually  a  decanter  and  glasses.  Even  a 
funeral  was  not  considered  complete  in  all  its  appoint- 
ments, unless  there  was  plenty  of  liquor  drunk  before  the 
corpse  was  taken  out  of  the  house,  much  more  being  con- 
sumed when  the  company  came  back. 

From  the  very  first,  the  young  pastor  took  a  firm  stand 
against  indulgence  in  any  intoxicating  liquor,  and  spoke 
his  mind  most  freely,  in  favor  not  only  of  temperance  but 
also  of  total  abstinence.  He  determined  to  use  his  oratori- 
cal talents  in  arousing  public  sentiment  against  the  drinking 
habits  of  his  day,  and  he  presided  over  the  first  public 
temperance  meeting  held  in  Philadelphia.  He  went  fur- 
ther. He  gave  notice  from  his  pulpit  that  he  should  enter 
no  house  where  liquors  were  provided,  not  even  to  hold 
services  over  the  dead. 

This  announcement  made  a  tremendous  sensation,  and 
no  doubt  some  thought  that  the  foundations  of  society  were 
endangered.  Soon  after  this  ultimatum,  the  pastor  repaired 
to  a  house  to  conduct  services  over  the  dead,  and  found 
that  liquors  were  being  served.  Instantly  going  out  doors, 
he  remained  standing  in  a  drenchiug  rain,  refusing  to 
officiate,  until  the  corpse  had  been  brought  to  him. 

5i 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Throughout  his  long  ministry,  he  continued  this  work, 
seeking  by  sermons,  addresses,  prayers,  the  taking  of 
pledges,  the  assistance  of  reformed  inebriates,  the  training 
of  young  men,  and  by  every  other  lawful  means  to  promote 
temperance  and  total  abstinence.  Not  always  abstemious 
in  his  language,  he  made  bitter  enemies  among  the  liquor 
dealers,  but  although  of  superb  physical  frame  and  excel- 
lent muscular  power  he  used  no  physical  force  or  carnal 
methods  of  defence,  with  possibly  one  exception.  Once  a 
publican  seized  him  by  the  collar,  as  he  was  walking  along 
the  street,  and  swore  vociferously  at  him.  Pretty  soon  he 
had  abused  his  victim  so  exhaustively,  that  he  was  himself 
out  of  breath.  At  the  end  of  this  verbal  discharge,  Mr. 
Chambers  who  had  listened  quietly,  lifted  his  hat,  thanked 
him,  said  "  good  morning,"  and  went  his  way.  In  1849 
he  was  introduced  to  an  audience  as  ' '  the  war-horse  of  the 
temperance  cause."  Ever  after  this  he  was  known  as  "  the 
war-horse."     One  elder  left  his  church  on  this  liquor  issue. 

It  began  to  look  as  if  an  independent  church  (which  is 
very  far  from  being  a  Congregational  Church)  was,  as  some 
had  predicted,  "  anything  that  John  Chambers  chose  to 
make  it."  Certainly  under  the  dominating  personality  of 
so  bold  and  yet  so  tender  a  soldier  of  Christ,  the  church 
quickly  rose  to  be  one  of  the  most  aggressive  in  the  city 
of  Penn. 

After  ten  or  fifteen  3^ears  of  service,  when  his  congrega- 
tion had  increased  and  lads  and  lassies  were  multiplied,  he 
organized  in  1840  the  Youth's  Temperance  Society.  It  was 
made  up  of  young  people.  Once  a  month  or  every  two 
months,  alternating  with  the  Missionary  Society,  the  after- 
noon Sunday  School  service  took  the  form  of  a  temperance 
meeting  ;  at  which,  besides  prayer  and  singing,  addresses 
were  made  by   speakers,    either  from   the  congregation   or 

52 


"THE  WAR  HORSE  OF  THE  TEMPERANCE  CAUSE" 

without.  There  were  also  occasionally  recitations,  but  the 
crowning  event  of  the  year,  for  which  preparations  were 
made  often  weeks  in  advance,  was  the  anniversary.  This 
was  held  on  the  evening  of  Washington's  Birthday,  Feb- 
ruary 22d,  either  in  the  church  edifice  or  at  Concert  Hall 
on  Chestnut  Street,  which  is  now  occupied  by  the  Public 
Library. 

Exquisitely  lovely  in  memory  rises  the  scene,  when  after 
duly  committing  to  memory  and  practicing,  cutting  down  to 
the  right  length  and  repeatedly  rehearsing  the  speeches,  the 
dialogues  and  the  musical  parts,  the  boys  and  the  girls,  in  a 
glow  of  excitement,  gathered  in  the  rooms  below  the  stage. 
The  little  maidens  in  their  best  clothes  and  most  bewitching 
adornments  in  hair  and  dress  and  slippers,  seemed  to  me 
most  radiantly  lovely.  The  boys  who  were  to  be  speakers 
had  on  their  coats  a  rosette  of  quilled  ribbon,  in  the  center 
of  which  was  a  tinsel  star,  from  which  gushed  forth  a 
cataract  of  red,  white,  and  blue  satin  pendants  or  streamers. 
How  gay  and  happy  we  all  were  !  How  heaven-like  it  all 
appeared  !  Except  for  the  thumping  of  one's  heart  under 
his  ribs,  it  seemed  positive  rapture  to  hear  one's  name 
announced  by  the  superintendent,  Aaron  H.  Burtis — that 
superb  re-incarnation,  as  we  thought,  of  George  Washing- 
ton. To  make  one's  bow  before  a  thousand  human  beings, 
to  speak  his  piece  with  high  pulse  and  magnetic  thrills, 
were  delights  that  filled  a  few  triumphant  moments.  Stir- 
ring are  the  memories  of  the  genial  pastor,  ever  ready  to 
cheer  the  boys,  the  portly  form  of  Robert  Luther,  the  happy 
faces  of  John  Yard,  Francis  Newland,  Daniel  Steinmetz  and 
Rudolph  S.  Walton,  and  the  younger  but  constantly  efficient 
Robert  H.  Hinckley,  Jr.  The  Youth's  Temperance  Society 
flourished  until  the  close  of  Mr.  Chambers'  ministry. 
Although  all  of  the  lads  trained  under  John  Chambers  did 

53 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

not  as  they  grew  up,  become  Prohibitionists,  yet  a  small 
army  of  good  citizens,  earnest  in  temperance  reform,  owe 
their  strength  of  conviction  to  their  noble  pastor. 

In  this  temperance  work  as  in  his  preaching,  and  his 
attacks  on  evil  of  any  sort  John  Chambers  was  as  bold  as  a 
lion.  He  spent  much  time  and  travelled  to  many  places  in 
order  to  take  part  in  temperance  meetings  and  encourage 
the  workers.  In  Neil  Dow's  reminiscences,  page  416,  is  an 
account  of  a  great  temperance  meeting  in  New  York  on 
February  19th,  1852,  at  which  the  Philadelphia  pastor  was 
present.  Dr.  Crowell  tells  of  another  held  at  Chester,  Pa. 
Dr.  A.  A.  Willetts  and  Dr.  Theodore  Cuyler  were  often  with 
the  "  War  Horse"  in  his  campaigns. 

On  one  occasion  when  a  barkeeper  repeatedly  sold  liquor 
to  one  who  was  near  and  dear  to  the  pastor  and  already  a 
victim  to  physical  decay  and  disease,  induced  by  his  drink- 
ing habits,  Mr.  Chambers  went  into  the  saloon,  stated  the 
exact  case  to  the  barkeeper  and  warned  him  not  to  sell  any 
more  liquor  to  the  patient.  Escaping  from  his  nurse,  the 
wretched  man  entered  the  saloon,  again  procured  liquor  and 
became  decidedly  worse.  Finding  what  had  been  done, 
Mr.  Chambers  went  to  the  barkeeper  in  fiery  anger  and  said  : 

"  Didn't  I  warn  you  not  to  sell  liquor  to ?  "     Then 

seizing  him  by  his  shoulders,  he  gave  the  publican  a 
vigorous  shaking,  and  again  warned  him,  threatening  a  se- 
vere penalty.  The  barkeeper  was  so  mightily  impressed, 
that  he  is  said  to  have  sold  no  more  to  the  patient. 

During  all  these  early  years,  Mr.  Chambers  kept  his 
5^oung  men  busy  in  active  evangelical  work,  especially  in 
the  holding  of  neighborhood  prayer  meetings  on  what  were 
then  the  outskirts  of  the  city.  In  1875,  Rev.  J.  J.  Baker, 
pastor  of  a  Baptist  Church  at  Navesink,  N.  J.,  testified  at 
the  jubilee  meeting  to  the  intense  activity  of  the  young  men 

54 


"  THE   WAR  HORSE  OF  THE  TEMPERANCE  CAUSE" 

of  the  church,  with  which  he  had  united  in  1829.  Four 
whom  he  named,  Summers,  Burnham,  Hunterson,  and  Town 
entered  the  ministry.  He  told  of  the  zeal  and  activity  of 
elders  Hibbert  and  Arrison.  "The  young  men  of  that 
time  were  interested  in  two  prayer  meetings,  one  held  in 
the  '  old  frame,'  as  it  was  called — a  barn  down  town,  out  of 
which  effort  grew  '  The  Cedar  Street  Presbyterian  Church.' 
The  other  prayer  meeting  was  held  in  '  The  Girard  School 
House,  '  out  of  which  grew  two  churches,  one  Lutheran 
and  one  Baptist." 

John  Chambers  was  also  a  rigid  Sabbatarian,  and  in  this, 
it  was  not  difficult  to  find  an  enthusiastic  following,  for 
many  in  his  congregation,  who  remembered  the  strictness 
and  severity  of  sabbath-keeping  in  the  old  countries, 
warmly  seconded  his  efforts  to  train  the  young  people  after 
their  ideas  of  how  the  Lord's  day  should  be  kept  in  America. 
Doubtless  in  the  majority  of  the  thousands  of  this  Israel, 
the  usual  custom  was  to  have  baths,  washings,  the  polish- 
ing of  boots,  and  the  preparation  of  outer  clothing  done 
on  Saturday  ;  but  a  still  grander  triumph  was  won  by  the 
new  pastor  and  a  precedent  set  for  fifty  years  to  come.  Sun- 
day funerals  had  been  the  rule,  even  to  occasional  disgust- 
ing excesses,  both  in  prolonging  the  preservation  by 
"icing"  the  corpse,  and  in  the  intemperate  feasting  and 
drinking  after  the  return  of  the  "  mourners  " — often  a  very 
mixed  company. 

John  Chambers  saw  the  folly  and  the  wickedness  of  un- 
necessary Sunday  funerals.  He  exposed  their  true  inward- 
ness and  refused  to  attend  them.  This,  of  course,  angered 
some  of  his  people,  and  a  few  left  the  church.  But  how  could 
they  stay  away  ?  Out  of  love  to  Christ  and  for  the  good  of 
the  working  man  and  of  horses,  John  Chambers  had  acted. 
His  motives  were  pure.     He  went  after  his  offended  breth- 

55 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

ren  and  won  them  back.  So  the  peacemaker,  true  child  of 
God,  led  his  flock — so  well  indeed  that  "  his  boys",  when 
pastors,  had  to  do  the  same  thing.  They  couldn't  help  it. 
History  repeated  itself.  It  was  first  firmness  in  the  pulpit, 
then  offense,  next  fair  scripture  argument  and  personal  ap- 
peal, followed  by  reconciliation,  with  the  result  that  God 
and  His  Sabbath  were  honored.  It  was  God's  pathetic  ap- 
peal with  Jonah  over  again — "  and  also  much  cattle."  Even 
a  horse  should  rest  on  Sunday.  The  fullness  of  energy  could 
thus  be  given  to  divine  worship  and  to  the  complete  enjoy- 
ment of  a  day,  so  different  from  all  the  other  six  days. 

The  Sabbath,  as  I  remember  it  in  church  and  home,  was 
a  rubric  on  our  week's  page.  The  normal  family  in  the 
Chambers  church,  of  which  ours  was  one,  were  all  ready  at 
home  on  Sunday  morning  so  as  to  be  punctual  at  church. 
After  a  good  breakfast,  including  the  traditional  "Dutch 
cake  and  coffee  ' '  for  the  elders  and  grownups,  and  plenty 
of  the  same  sweet  and  nourishing  food,  saving  the  Mocha, 
for  the  young  folks,  we  started  off  from  home  so  as  to  be  at 
Sunday  school  a  few  minutes  before  nine  o'clock.  The  ses- 
sion lasted  until  quarter  past  ten,  which  gave  ample  time 
for  the  breaking  up  and  dismissing  of  the  classes,  the  social 
greetings  of  friends,  and  a  comfortable  interval  forgetting 
into  the  larger  auditorium  above,  where  service  began  punc- 
tually at  10:30. 

The  Sunday  school  had  been  started  as  a  novelty  in  the 
days  of  the  old  Thirteenth  Street  Church  by  the  pastor 
shortly  after  his  coming  to  Philadelphia.  Although  I  do 
not  remember  that  he  ever  taught  a  class  himself,  or  ever 
heard  of  his  doing  so,  yet  there  was  one  feature  of  his  con- 
nection with  and  interest  in  the  Sunday  School  which  has 
been  to  me  and  to  many  an  inspiration  for  life.  Not  long 
after  the   preliminary  devotional   exercises   were   over,  our 

56 


"  THE  WAR  HORSE  OF  THE  TEMPERANCE  CAUSE  " 

handsome  leader,  of  stately  port  and  mien,  appeared  on  the 
scene.  Going  to  each  class  he  shook  hands  heartily  with 
each  and  every  teacher,  and  often  saluted,  or  in  some  way 
noticed,  the  children  of  the  class,  speaking  a  pleasant  word, 
or  inquiring  after  sister  or  brother,  parent  or  relative.  Often 
to  their  delight  he  called  the  pupils  by  their  first  names,  for 
he  was  able  to  do  this.  Both  teachers  and  scholars  would 
look  for  the  appearing  of  this  grand  man  as  regularly  as 
they  awaited  the  sunlight.  The  pastor  kept  ever  in  vital 
touch  with  the  Sunday  School,  generally  remaining  until 
near  the  time  for  his  engagement  upstairs.  Thus  he  inau- 
gurated a  custom  which  was  life-long  and  inspiring,  and 
which  many  another  active  pastor  has  followed  in  true  apos- 
tolical succession. 

Would   my   readers   wish   to    have    a   specimen  of  John 
Chambers's  preaching  even  in  his  early  days  ?     To  do  this 
by    presenting    simply    ink    and    paper    is   not   to   reveal 
"  thoughts  that  breathe  and  words  that  burn  ".     It  is  sim- 
ply to  point   to   a    pressed   flower,  bleached  of  its  tints  and 
with  all  its  perfume  exhaled,  for  the  sermon  was  the  man 
himself.     Nevertheless,  a  faded   and  time-stained  pamphlet 
of  fifteen   pages,    entitled   "Sermon   by  the  Rev.  Mr.  John 
Chambers,  delivered  at  the  Presbyterian  Church   in  Thir- 
teenth Street,  Philadelphia,  on  the  evening   of  December  2, 
1827",  when   Universalism   was   then   new   and  in  the  air, 
from  these  words,  "Ye   shall   not    surely  die  ",  gives  some 
idea  of  the  general  style  and  quality  of  the  young  preacher. 
The  discourse  was  "taken  in  shorthand  by  M.  T.  C.  Gould, 
Stenographer  ". 

Let  us  in  imagination  take  our  seat  in  the  little  brick 
church  among  his  audience  and  listen  to  the  discourse. 
Even  the  stenographer,  owing  to  the  crowd,  was,  as  he  says, 
in  "a  very  unfavorable  position  for  hearing."  But  who 
could  not  hear  such  a  voice  ? 

57 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

The  sermon  is  a  vigorous  setting  forth  of  religion  in  the 
genuine  old-fashioned  style,  in  a  torrent  of  emotional  and 
not  particularly  logical  oratory.  It  is  an  assault  upon  the 
notions  of  those  "  who  would  persuade  you  that  the  idea  of 
future  punishment  is  only  the  visionary  dream  of  fanatics  ". 
The  especial  reference  is  to  "  those  emissaries  who  are  so 
industriously  engaged  in  seeking  to  destroy  the  souls  of 
men  :  they  are  laboring  by  all  the  ingenuity  of  the  arch 
fiend  himself,  who  first  presented  the  forbidden  fruit  under 
such  bewitching  charms  ". 

The  new  pastor  believes  that  this  system  "leads  to  the 
destruction  of  all  morality  and  religion".  By  him  the 
Eden  narrative  is  read  as  a  literal  fact.  The  young  orator 
quotes  from  Montesquieu,  Lord  Bolingbroke  (though  the 
reporter  could  not  catch  either  the  point  or  the  words)  and 
Hume,  by  which  he  would  prove  that  "  this  system  leads 
to  the  destruction  of  civil  society  and  civil  government". 
Warming  to  his  theme,  he  declares  that  "  all  vice  is  the 
immediate  offspring  of  the  dogmas  of  Universalism  .... 
.  The  doctrine  of  universal  salvation  leads  to  all  the 
vices  and  abominations  under  heaven  ' ' ,  Reference  is  made 
to  the  fact  that  "  New  York  tells  a  mournful  tale  in  conse- 
quence of  this  doctrine" — the  allusion  being  to  a  recent 
duel  between  a  citizen  of  New  York  and  a  citizen  of  Phila- 
delphia1. The  preacher  even  declares  that  "a  man  holding 
such  sentiments  should  never  be  entrusted  with  any  civil 
office ' ' . 

Against  the  background  of  "fire  and  brimstone  and  an 
horrible  tempest  upon  the  wicked  and  ungodly  ' '  he  pressed 
the  invitation  to  come  to    "the   Redeeming  Saviour,   the 

•  Was  this  the  duel  of  Midshipman  Hunter  and  the  brilliant  young 
Philadelphia  lawyer,  Miller,  the  latter  losing  his  life  and  the  former 
becoming  the  famous  "  Alvarado  "  Hunter  told  of  in  the  life  of  Com- 
modore Matthew  Calbraith  Perry,  (Boston,  1887)  p.  239? 

58 


"THE  WAR  HORSE  OF  THE  TEMPERANCE  CAUSE" 

Divine  Saviour,  the  Glorified  Saviour".  The  eloquent 
preacher  closes  his  discourse,  which  is  from  beginning  to 
end  directed  to  the  conscience,  with  a  good,  warm,  direct 
appeal  to  his  hearers  for  personal  decision. 

Enough  of  proof  is  here  given  that  from  the  first,  even  to 
the  last  year,  if  not  the  latest  moment  of  his  life,  John 
Chambers  never  lost  sight  of  the  needy,  sinful,  human  soul, 
and  that  he  always  closed  with  a  tender  and  affectionate 
personal  appeal.  Men  might  be  as  steel  against  his  logic, 
but  their  hearts  melted  under  his  winning  importunity. 

One  great  landmark  in  John  Chambers's  life  was  his  visit 
to  Europe  in  1830.  His  excessive  labors  and  long-continued 
use  of  his  voice  in  public  discourse  compelled  him  to  cease 
both  preaching  and  pastoral  work.     As  he  said  in  1875  : 

"In  the  year  1830  I  lost  my  voice  so  that  I  could  not 
have  been  heard  twenty  paces  from  where  I  am  now  if  you 
had  given  me  the  world.  My  physician  ordered  me  away 
and  I  was  gone  fourteen  months.  When  the  announcement 
was  made  to  my  brethern  that  I  had  to  go  they  instantly 
made  arrangements.  They  put  into  my  purse  twenty-five 
hundred  dollars,  and  into  the  hand  of  my  dear  friend  and 
brother,  Rev.  Dr.  Ludlow,  the  father  of  Judge  Ludlow,  one 
thousand  dollars  to  preach  on  the  Sabbath  for  one  year, 
making  thirty-five  hundred  dollars  down  at  once.  It  was  a 
noble  and  generous  act  on  their  part  ". 

Such  generosity  was  as  surprising  to  the  young  pastor  as 
it  was  creditable  to  the  people  themselves.  To  see  the  great 
ocean  and  the  Old  World  at  a  time  of  the  fullness  of  his 
manly  vigor  and  professional  success,  travelling  in  a  first- 
class  steamer,  compelled  contrast  with  his  first  crossing  of 
the  ocean  as  a  helpless  baby  and  with  a  father  who  was  an 
exile  and  political  refugee.  In  England  he  was  so  fortunate 
as  to  see  the  royal  maiden  who  had  just  been  in  1830  made 

59 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

heiress  presumptive  to  the  Crown  on  the  accession  of 
William  IV.  Possibly  it  was  at  this  time  that  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Richard  Vaux,  then  secretary  of  the  Amer- 
ican legation,  whom  I  remember  well  in  his  later  life  as  a 
prominent  Democratic  politician  and  mayor  of  the  city  of 
Philadelphia.  With  his  long,  flowing,  curled  hair, — pro- 
nounced dress  and  astonishing  necktie,  Mr.  Vaux  was  a  pic- 
turesque figure  in  the  Quaker  City.  He  often  boasted  of 
having  danced  with  the  lady  who  became  Queen  Victoria, 
though  this  was  before  she  assumed  the  crown  on  June  28th, 
1838.  While  in  Scotland  Mr.  Chambers  visited  the  Free 
Mason's  lodges  and  enjoyed  the  mysteries  of  the  Scottish 
rite.  In  Ireland  he  visited  his  native  place,  Stewartstown, 
the  house  in  which  he  was  born,  and  the  prison  in  which  his 
father  had  been  incarcerated  and  from  which  he  escaped. 
He  was  absent  in  all  fourteen  months,  and  came  back  re- 
freshed in  body  and  enlarged  in  mind. 

In  physical  righteousness  John  Chambers  stood  before  his 
boys  and  young  men  as  an  inspiring  exemplar.  He  neither 
"  drank,  chewed,  smoked,  or  swore."  For  fifty  years  he  put 
to  confusion  those  who  preached  the  necessity  or  justified 
the  use  of  alcohol  or  tobacco.  Over  six  feet  high,  in  superb 
health  and  vigor,  always  invitingly  clean  in  person,  he  rein- 
forced every  day  the  teaching  of  good  fathers  and  mothers 
who  strove  to  lead  their  sons  to  noble  manhood. 


60 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  MASTER  OF  HEARTS. 

In  John  Chambers,  sanctified  common  sense  was  combined 
with  spiritual  fervor.  As  a  young  pastor,  he  had  right  ideas 
about  finance  and  the  honest  support  of  a  church.  Money 
was  needed  for  the  salaries  and  expenses  of  keeping  the 
edifice  comfortable  and  in  repair.  Before  the  first  year  had 
passed  by,  it  was  evident  to  the  "  Chamberites  ",  that  a  new 
building  would  be  necessary,  even  if  the  law  suit  had  gone 
in  their  favor.  The  voices  of  the  croakers  and  prophets  of 
evil,  at  first  loud  and  thunderous,  had  sunk  to  the  "peep 
and  mutter"  stage  and  were  rapidly  approaching  silence. 

In  a  new  field,  larger  financial  resources  would  be  neces- 
sary, but  from  the  first,  only  manly,  honorable,  and  truly 
scriptural  methods  of  providing  revenue  were  employed. 
Never  in  all  the  history  of  the  First  Independent  Church 
was  there  a  fair  or  supper  to  which  admittance  was  charged. 
Those  methods  of  raising  money,  too  often  associated  with 
religious  societies,  to  the  scandal  of  faith,  the  equipment  of 
the  jester,  and  the  furnishing  of  the  ungodly  with  excuse 
for  self-righteousness,  were  tabooed  by  Mr.  Chambers. 
He  believed  both  that  the  laborer  was  worthy  of  his  hire, 
and  that  men  ought  to  pay  for  their  religious  privileges. 
He  was  so  successful  in  this  policy  that  within  six  years, 
having  paid  all  debts,  his  people  in  the  spring  of  1830 
bought  at  Broad  and  George  (now  Sansom)  streets,  that  lot 
of  land  for  four  hundred  dollars,  which  afterwards  was  sold 
for  over  four  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  land  and 
house  of  worship,  the  subsequent  enlargement  and  repairs, 
as  well  as  the  running  expenses  of  the  church,  so  long  as  it 

61 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

was  independent,  were  paid  for  by  subscriptions.  "We 
have  never  in  our  lives,"  said  John  Chambers  in  1875,  "gone 
abroad  for  means  to  help  us." 

The  region  west  of  Broad  street  was  then  "out  in  the 
country".  Green  fields,  or  vacant  lots,  stretched  to  the 
Schuylkill  River.  At  Broad  and  Market  were  the  Water 
Works.  When  afterwards  these  were  removed  and  the 
pumps  and  reservoir  were  established  at  Fairmount,  four 
small  parks,  with  their  trees  and  green  sward,  made  one  of 
the  city's  breathing  spaces.  Even  then  Broad  Street  was 
considered  the  western  boundary  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia. 

Bright  and  happy  was  that  February  morning  of  1830 
when  the  young  pastor,  with  many  of  his  flock  around  him, 
took  his  place  on  the  green  sward  at  Broad  and  Sansom 
streets.  With  his  long  hair  brushed  into  lively  motion  by 
the  matin  breezes,  he  poured  out  a  prayer  to  Heaven  for 
the  blessing  of  the  triune  God.  "  Like  all  Irishmen,  John 
Chambers  knew  how  to  handle  the  spade  ",  and  handle  it 
well  he  did  on  that  day  when  he  turned  up  the  first  spade- 
ful of  earth.  After  the  diggers  came  the  masons,  who  built 
honestly  a  solid  foundation,  and  then  the  corner-stone  lay- 
ing in  March,  1830,  and  finally  the  dedication  in  June,  1831. 
Dr.  John  Mason  Duncan  preached  first  in  the  new  house  in 
the  morning  and  the  sermon  was  royally  long.  One  little 
boy,  now  an  honored  pastor  of  eighty,  remembers  that  it 
ended  at  half-past  one  !  Alas,  that  Saint  Paul's  faults,  like 
that  at  Troas,  should  be  more  imitated  by  us  preachers  than 
his  virtues !  In  the  afternoon  Rev.  James  Arbuckle 
preached.     "  The  house  was  crowded  to  excess  all  day." 

How  one  family,  and  indeed  a  group  of  families  allied  by 
blood  or  marriage,  came  to  be  life-long  supporters  of  and 
worshippers  in  the  First  Independent  Church,  we  must  now 
tell.     We  shall  speak  of  one  member  named  Mary. 

62 


THE  MASTER  OF  HEARTS 

It  was  in  1832,  the  winter  in  which  the  famous  English 
actress,  Fannie  Kemball,  sister  of  Mrs.  Sartoris  (whose  grand- 
son, in  our  day,  married  Nellie,  the  daughter  of  General 
Grant)  was  starring  in  Philadelphia  in  the  old  Chestnut 
street  theatre,  on  the  South  side  of  Philadelphia's  most 
fashionable  street,  above  Sixth.  Mary  had  spent  a  winter 
of  great  gaiety,  revelling  in  the  joys  of  the  dance,  the 
theatre  and  every  sort  of  worldly  amusement — much  to  the 
grief  of  her  mother,  a  woman  of  unaffected  piety,  who  was 
praying  that  her  daughter  might  look  less  at  things  perish- 
ing and  more  at  the  eternal. 

Yet  no  message  from  the  Unseen,  sent  through  a  human 
preacher,  had  yet  reached  the  ears  of  Mary's  inner  being. 
It  was  while  the  anxious  mother  was  most  earnestly  pray- 
ing, that  Mary  was  invited  by  a  maiden  friend,  whom 
she  had  met  at  a  picnic  and  with  whom  she  had  formed 
a  warm  friendship,  to  visit  her  and  go  to  hear  the  new 
minister  on  Thirteenth  street.  Mary  came,  and  saw,  and 
heard,  and  was  conquered.  At  the  first  sermon  she  hung 
spell-bound  on  the  lips  of  the  emotional  and  electrifying 
young  orator,  who  during  all  his  ministrations  had  also 
that  peculiar  unction,  without  which,  preaching,  however 
logical  and  learned,  avails  little. 

On  coming  home,  after  the  service  in  the  new  church  on 
Broad  street,  Mary  told  her  mother  that  she  would  never  go 
to  the  theatre  again  ;  she  had  heard  the  grandest  speaker 
that  she  had  ever  looked  upon  in  her  life ;  who  outshone 
every  actor  she  had  ever  seen,  and  whose  message  had  more 
charms  for  her  than  the  theatre  itself.  Soon  after  this  Mr. 
Chambers  with  his  wife  made  his  first  pastoral  call  at  Mary's 
home. 

About  this  time,  late  in  the  winter  and  toward  the  spring, 
there  was   a  revivalist  assisting  Mr.  Chambers,  who  to  elo- 

63 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

quence  and  magnetic  power,  added  the  power  of  the 
draughtsman.  He  was  an  artist  in  words  and  with  the 
chalk  also.  He  drew  a  cross  on  the  blackboard,  and  with- 
out the  element  of  color,  but  with  the  aid  of  music  moved 
the  emotions  mightily.  He  called  upon  the  congregation, 
led  by  sweet  voices,  to  sing,  "Alas  !  And  Did  My  Saviour 
Bleed  ".  His  appeals,  tender  and  powerful,  were  responded 
to.  Many  were  brought  "  under  conviction  "  and  declared 
themselves  from  that  time  followers  of  Jesus  Christ.  On  the 
day  that  Mary  united  with  the  church,  one  hundred  persons 
were  received  at  the  communion  table  and  into  membership. 

This  is  one  sample  picture  of  many  of  dissolving  views  of 
souls  in  Mr.  Chambers's  ever  enlarging  congregation.  His 
ministry  was  from  the  first  one  of  direct  appeal.  It  was 
emotional,  the  personal  element  being  powerful  always,  but 
there  was  no  leaving  of  the  converts  to  themselves  or  to  neg- 
lect. Behind  and  above  the  Celtic  fire  and  enthusiasm  of 
John  Chambers,  was  the  life  of  the  Spirit  moving  them 
through  him.  The  converts  were  looked  after.  They  were 
personally  warned,  exhorted,  instructed,  and  taught.  Dur- 
ing this  first  year,  yes,  during  fifty  years,  John  Chambers 
seemed  an  incarnation  of  Paul's  scripture:  "Whom  we 
preach,  warning  every  man  and  teaching  every  man  that  we 
may  present  every  man  perfect  in  Christ  Jesus  ".  No  extra 
or  special  meetings  were  held  in  these  early  years,  and  none 
that  we  can  recall  in  the  later  days,  but  the  regular  ser- 
vices were  steadily  "  the  occasions  of  converting  power." 

I  have  intimated  that  the  secret  of  the  great  preacher's 
power  cannot  be  discovered  by  mere  logical  analysis.  One 
might  as  well  try  to  explain  John  Chambers's  influence  over 
human  hearts  and  lives  by  his  printed  words  alone  or 
through  mere  description,  as  to  attempt  to  show,  by  a  simple 
knowledge  of  the  properties   of  lead   alone,  the  astounding 

64 


THE  MASTER  OF  HEARTS 

effects  of  a  Krag  army  rifle.  The  venerable  Dr.  Henry 
Clay  Trumbull,  veteran  editor  of  the  Sunday  School  Times, 
writes  under  date  of  June  n,  1903  : 

"An  orator's  or  a  preacher's  power  sometimes  depends 
largely  on  his  intensity  of  utterance  or  of  manner.  He  can 
actually  throw  himself  into  his  hearers  so  that  they  will,  for 
the  time,  think  or  feel  as  he  does,  even  beyond  the  meaning 
of  his  words.  Thus  it  was  said  of  Whitefield  as  a  preacher 
that  he  could  move  an  audience  to  tears  by  saying  the  word 
'Mesopotamia'.  One  who  has  felt  the  power  of  some 
preachers  can  understand  the  force  of  that  statement. 

"  Rev.  John  Chambers  was  a  man  of  power  in  this  line  be- 
yond any  other  of  the  preachers  I  have  heard  in  my  more 
than  seventy  years.  I  sometimes  came  from  Hartford  to 
Philadelphia  to  hear  him  in  his  church  on  Broad  street. 
His  voice  would  ring  out  with  such  intensity,  and  his  words 
would  so  thrill  through  every  nerve  of  my  being  that  it 
seemed  to  me  that  a  more  than  human  being  was  making  an 
appeal.  On  more  than  one  occasion  I  have  taken  out  my 
pencil  to  note  such  an  utterance  which  had  seemed  to  be  in- 
spired, but  there  was  actually  nothing  to  write  down.  No 
period  could  give  the  ring  or  the  thrill.  It  was  simply 
George  Whitefield  saying  '  Mesopotamia  '.  It  was  an  ele- 
ment of  John  Chambers's  power.  But  I  love  to  tell  of  that 
power  ". 

The  communion  seasons  were  from  the  first  occasions  of 
the  manifestation  of  spiritual  power.  Often  the  minister 
himself  would  be  almost  overcome  by  his  own  feelings,  or, 
perhaps  we  should  say,  by  the  vividness  of  his  vision  of  the 
crucified  Lover  of  our  souls.  Often  in  such  a  case  it  was  his 
habit,  during  a  pause  in  the  rush  of  feeling  to  sit  down  upon 
his  chair,  throw  his  head  back  and  completely  cover  his  face 
with  his  handkerchief,  his  hands  resting  upon  the  arms  of 
5  65 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

his  chair  until  his  tears  and  the  storm  of  emotion  had  swept 
hy.  These  over,  he  emerged  as  the  embodiment  of  quiet 
grace,  dignity,  and  calm  strength,  the  master  of  the  as- 
sembly. 

After  the  darkening  of  his  home  through  the  removal 
from  it  by  death  of  his  wife,  Mr.  Chambers,  left  with  two 
little  children,  found  consolation  in  even  profounder  conse- 
cration to  the  wrork  of  leading  souls  into  the  Wajr.  His 
own  spiritual  life  was  deepened  and  his  sympathies  with 
suffering  humanity  widened  by  his  own  sorrows.  He  had 
always  a  message  for  those,  who  like  himself,  knew  the 
weight  of  known  griefs  or  secretly  borne  crosses.  In  later 
years  he  was  to  lose  his  only  son.  My  own  recollections  of 
the  young  physician,  whom  my  pastor  always  so  tenderly 
referred  to  as  "my  son  Duncan",  are  of  a  handsome  and 
promising  man,  whose  life  was  all  too  short.  I  remember 
how  keen  and  warm  were  the  sympathies  of  great  congre- 
gations, during  the  time  when  the  father's  heart  was  wrung 
with  grief,  as  the  telegrams  and  letters  told  of  the  ravages 
of  disease  and  the  approaching  end. 

The  biographer  never  saw  the  first  Mrs.  Chambers,  who 
is  described  by  those  who  knew  her  as  very  lovely  in  person 
and  manner,  but  her  children  and  the  other  ' '  partners  in 
life  " — his  favorite  phrase — are  well  remembered. 

The  second  marriage  of  Mr.  Chambers  was  on  September 
30th,  1834,  to  Martha,  the  widow  of  Silas  B.  Weir,  a 
merchant  of  Philadelphia  and  the  daughter  of  Alexander 
Henry,  a  merchant  in  Philadelphia,  and  aunt  to  Mayor 
Alexander  Henry. 

My  impressions  of  Martha  Chambers  extend  from  the 
month  of  March,  1855,  until  a  short  time  before  her  death, 
on  Friday,  March  16,  i860.  I  have  dim  remembrances  of 
my  being  a  very  little  boy,  when  an  august  lady,  who  wore 

66 


THE  MASTER  OF  HEARTS 

her  hair  in  bands  low  down  on  her  cheeks,  as  the  fashion 
then  was,  with  a  very  sweet  smile,  spoke  kindly  to  me  in 
the  Broad  street  Church.  I  recall  how  every  Sunday  morn- 
ing and  afternoon,  the  stately  man  of  God  with  his  "com- 
panion in  life",  a  lady  of  equally  imposing  appearance 
with  himself  moved  up  the  middle  aisle  and,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  often  arm  in  arm,  until  reaching  the  space  op- 
posite the  pew.  Then  the  pastor  would  with  his  left  hand, 
open  the  door.  After  ceremoniously  seeing  his  consort  well 
inside,  he  would  shut  the  pew  door  and  then  move  briskly 
forward  and  up  the  pulpit  steps  to  the  sofa. 

Thus  happy  in  his  home  life,  rich  in  sweet  domestic  in- 
fluences having  ever  a  true  "help  meet  for  him",  John 
Chambers,  during  most  of  his  mature  life,  was  helped  not 
only  of  God  but  by  woman's  finer  strength.  He  was  the 
master  of  hearts  also  in  his  home,  having  Browning's  "two 
soul  sides".  Martha  Chambers  once  told  my  mother  that 
she  envied  even  the  washerwoman  that  washed  her  hus- 
band's clothes.  In  Philadelphia  to-day  there  are  many 
daughters  and  grand-daughters  that  do  excellently,  and 
they  have  "  Martha  Chambers"  in  their  name. 

Of  each  one  of  three  noble  specimens  of  womanhood,  in 
their  appropriate  time  and  sphere,  it  could  be  said, 

"Her  husband  is  known  in  the  gates,  when  he  sitteth 
among  the  elders  of  the  land  ". 


67 


CHAPTER  X. 

BOYHOOD'S  MEMORIES. 

My  earliest  remembrances  of  the  first  church  edifice  on 
Broad  street,  except  the  grand  pulpit  and  a  general  glory  of 
galleries  and  chandeliers,  are  rather  dim.  The  auditorium 
seemed  to  be  a  vast  and  awful  place,  where  a  little  boy 
would  not  like  to  be  left  alone  in  the  twilight  or  the  dark- 
ness. Nevertheless  all  my  daylight  memories  of  it  are  of 
the  most  genial  sort.  The  great  middle  aisle,  so  well  fitted 
for  a  marriage  or  wedding  parade,  but  which  afterwards, 
when  as  a  preacher,  from  the  marble  memorial  pulpit,  I 
looked  down  into  its  sheer  length  and  emptiness,  I  con- 
sidered as  a  tunnel  of  waste  space,  was  carpeted  red.  The 
enamel-white  pew-doors,  with  white  porcelain  number- 
plates,  bright  red  pew  facings  and  cushions,  and  the  lines 
of  black  silk  hats  of  the  gentlemen,  laid  just  outside  the 
pew  doors,  made  a  morning  picture  in  which  color  was  not 
lacking.  In  the  afternoons,  the  aisles,  occupied  by  eager 
hearers,  were  crowded  with  settees  and  chairs,  so  the  silk 
hats  of  pew  owners  had  to  be  kept,  literally,  indoors.  On 
week  nights  I  was  often  a  witness  of  the  ceremonies,  in 
which  several  of  the  twenty-five  hundred  or  more  couples 
which  were  yoked  in  wedlock  by  John  Chambers  during  his 
pastorate,  received  the  nuptial  benediction,  and  the  bride 
the  pastor's  kiss. 

At  the  orient  end  of  the  aisle,  before  the  enlargement  of 
1853,  rose  the  great  mahogany  pulpit,  which  swelled  out  in 
its  capacious  center  and  then  rounded  out  with  a  still  more 
generous  curve  at  either  end,  from  which  rose  two  short 
pillars,  as  imposing  to  my  youthful  mind  as  those  of  Her- 
cules.     I  remember  how  much  I  wondered,   my  infantile 

63 


BOYHOOD'S  MEMORIES 

intellect  being  confused,  when  my  father  pointed  out  the 
"  pillars"  on  the  Spanish  silver  dollars,  that  two  things  so 
different,  coin  marks  and  pulpit  ornaments  should  be  called 
by  the  same  name.  On  the  top  of  these  pillars  at  first  was 
a  globe  lamp  filled  with  oil,  though  in  the  march  of  pro- 
gress, wick  and  chimney  gave  way  to  gas  burners.  Even 
to  this  day,  my  mental  associations  of  the  "lamps  ",  in  the 
parable  of  the  ten  virgins,  are  those  of  my  boyhood's  days 
in  Chambers  Church.  Great  crimson  velvet  curtains  hung 
from  near  the  ceilings,  and  shining  brass  bands  on  the 
carpet  of  the  pulpit  stairs  are  also  in  my  recollection. 

My  next  impression  of  the  dear  old  house  of  worship  was 
in  1853,  when  not  quite  ten  years  old,  and  living  on  Girard 
avenue,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  city,  I  was  taken  "down 
town  "  to  the  sacred  edifice  when  it  was  undergoing  a  pro- 
cess of  enlargement  and  change.  The  fashions  of  1831  were 
to  give  way  to  those  of  1853.  There  was  another  great  cur- 
tain, this  time  not  of  velvet,  but,  if  I  remember  right,  of 
coarse  canvas,  which  separated  from,  but  also  allowed  a  par- 
tial view  into  a  space  in  which  masons,  plasterers  and  car- 
penters were  at  that  time  more  familiar  than  were  sitters  and 
worshippers. 

In  the  twenty-one  years  of  its  history,  the  large  building 
erected  in  1831  had  become  too  strait.  By  resolution  of  the 
annual  meeting  in  April,  1853,  the  old  pulpit  had  been 
taken  away,  the  eastern  wall  knocked  out,  and  the  whole 
edifice  changed  in  appearance  by  making  an  oriental  exten- 
sion of  fifteen  feet,  while  in  front,  on  Broad  street,  the  por- 
tico, with  its  imposing  platforms,  pillars  and  pediment  were 
added.  During  the  interim,  when  homeless,  the  congrega- 
tion worshipped  in  Concert  Hall,  on  Chestnut  street.  When 
I  saw  again  the  old  church  home,  simplicity  had  given  away 
to  luxury.     It  was  like  the  exchange  from  Ben    Franklin's 

69 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

two-penny  earthen  porringer  and  pewter  spoon  for  china  and 
silver. 

The  enlargement  at  both  ends  gave  fifty-four  additional 
pews  in  the  audience  chamber  and  more  abundant  space  in 
the  new  Sunday  School  room,  which,  though  a  basement, 
was  well  lighted  through  plenty  of  windows  on  three  sides. 
There  was  also  a  large  "infant  school"  room,  or  primary 
department,  over  which  my  mother  presided  for  several  years, 
besides  the  large  committee  room,  afterwards  used  for  meet- 
ings of  the  Session,  and  also  as  a  Bible  class  conducted 
during  many  years  by  Mr.  Rudolph  S.  Walton.  These 
rooms  fronted  on  Sansom  Street.  On  the  north  side, 
lighted  from  the  alley,  straatje,  or  little  street,  as  the  Dutch 
would  say,  were  the  library  rooms. 

In  a  word,  the  building  had  been  modernized,  with  im- 
proved furnaces  and  gas  lighting  apparatus,  new  carpets, 
new  cushions  and  large  galleries,  etc.,  so  that  when  again 
I  saw  the  edifice  some  months  later  it  seemed  not  only  a 
new  and  more  gorgeous  house  of  worship,  with  the  glory 
as  of  the  second  temple,  but  everything  was  so  shining  and 
and  clean,  that  it  struck  me  as  being  an  unusual  sin  to  do 
what  the  small  boy  is  so  tempted  to  do, — to  scratch  the 
varnish  on  the  pew  backs.  It  is  true  that  the  very  bright- 
ness of  that  varnish  challenged  the  average  urchin  to  see  if 
he  had  not  about  him  a  pin,  or  the  nib  of  a  broken  steel 
pen,  to  make  his  initials  visible,  or  possibly  some  music. 
No  carpet,  or  terry,  or  pew  cushions  ever  seen  on  earth  be- 
fore, as  I  imagined,  could  be  of  a  richer  red,  and  beside  the 
white  enamelled  front  of  the  pulpit  platform,  nothing  ever 
appeared  whiter  or  glossier.  The  pulpit  itself  was  carved 
in  foliations,  all  as  glistening  white  as  if,  though  in  reality 
wood,  it  were  polished  marble.  In  later  years  this  altar- 
like pulpit  gave  way  to  a  square  structure  of  more  massive 

70 


BOYHOOD'S  MEMORIES 

dimensions,  Doric  in  outline  and  simplicity,  that  extended 
across  the  whole  space  between  the  columns. 

That  end  of  the  sacred  edifice  to  which   our  eyes  first 
turned  and  longest  dwelt,  seemed  to  have  passed  through  a 
veritable  transfiguration.     My  boyish  fancy,  struck  by  the 
biblical  phrase,  suggested  its  shining  whiteness  as  having 
been  blanched  by  "fuller's  earth  "—to  me  an  entirely  un- 
known and  mystic  substance.     As  for  the  red  velvet,   on 
which  the  big  Bible  lay  open,  nothing  before  or  since  seemed 
to  have  richer  gloss  or  texture,  or  more  strikingly  huge 
tassels.     Two  fluted  white  marble  Ionic  columns  rose  from 
the  pulpit  floor  space  to  the  ceiling.     Back  against  the  wall, 
instead  of  the  old  sofa,  ten  or  twelve  feet  long,  of  veneered 
mahogany,  with  cushions  covered  with  horse  hair  cloth,  was 
a  modern  and  more  jauntily  carved  article  of  half  the  old 
length  and  apparently  less  comfortable.     But  what  has  com- 
fort to  say,  as  against  fashion?     Hanging  beside  the  sofa, 
against  the  wall,  on  a  white  porcelain  knob,  was  the  very 
large  oval  fan  of  crow  feathers,  which,  while  to  the  ungodly 
it  represented  a  rather  narrow  handled  ace  of  spades,  was 
then  the  thoroughly  orthodox  ornament  of  a  pulpit,  with 
which  the  preacher  was  expected  to  cool  his  brow  without 
chilling  his  zeal  on  hot  days  in  summer.     Indeed  there  were 
some  very  hot  days,  when,  glued  to  the  overheated  cushion, 
the  small  boy  envied  "  the  freedom  of  irreligion  of  the  flies. " 
As  to  the  physical  activity  of  the  pastor,  while  preaching  it 
was  very  vigorous,  but  it  was  too  graceful  to  approach  closely 
the  reputed  ideal  of  Abraham  Iyincoln,  who  liked  to  have  a 
parson  discourse  "  as  if  he  were  fighting  bees  ".     Neverthe- 
less the  fan,  at  restful  moments,  when  he  was  seated,  came 
into  requisition  as  often  as  did  the  historic  white  handker- 
chief in  time  of  oratorical  action. 

To  the  right  and  left  of  the  pulpit  were  two  high  windows, 
with  panes  of  colored  glass.     Rather  long  and  narrow,  each 

7i 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

consisted  of  two  upright  sashes  or  divisions,  like  casements, 
which  could  be  easily  opened  in  summer  for  ventilation.  So 
much  color,  even  to  frivolity  in  the  eyes  of  some,  looked 
positively  gay  and  suggested  modern  luxury  more  than 
ancestral  simplicity. 

Above  the  level  of  the  floor  and  middle  aisle  was  a  large 
platform  two  steps  high  and  probably  six  or  eight  feet  wide, 
on  which  was  marshalled  the  range  of  chairs  for  the  pastor 
and  his  elders,  who  had  ample  room  on  it,  even  with  the 
communion  table  set  about  the  middle  of  the  stage.  At 
either  end  of  this  platform  was  a  line  of  pews,  five  or  six  in 
number,  at  right  angles  with  the  eastern  wall  and  entered 
from  the  west.  In  later  years,  these  gave  way  to  a  screen 
of  white  painted  wood  and  ground  glass,  covering  stairways 
into  the  lower  room.  As  for  the  ceiling,  it  was  truly  impos- 
ing in  its  great  central  countersunk  rotunda  and  depressed 
squares,  which  showed  how  grandly  the  architect  had 
treated  this  portion  of  the  edifice. 

The  cost  of  the  improvements  was  nearly  fifteen  thousand 
dollars,  but  the  number  of  pews  became  242  and  the  capac- 
ity, including  the  galleries,  had  increased  so  as  to  seat  fifteen 
hundred  persons.  Nevertheless,  for  many  years,  it  was  not 
uncommon,  as  I  clearly  remember,  to  pack  together  under 
the  one  roof  twenty-five  hundred  auditors.  This  was  done 
by  sitting  and  standing,  by  stowing  away  the  children  upon 
laps  and  down  on  hassocks,  filling  the  aisles  with  seats,  hav- 
ing rows  of  human  wall  flowers  blooming  upright  all  along 
the  gallery,  aisles,  passage  ways,  and  steps,  and  by  cram- 
ming the  vestibule,  which  was  often  completely  occupied  by 
settees  or  with  a  standing  crowd.  Happily  no  fire  broke  out 
or  panic  ensued  during  these  dangerous  jams.  After  the 
benediction  the  trustees,  church  officers,  and  boys  and  men 
were  only  too  glad  to  volunteer  as  ushers,  sextons,  or  labor- 

72 


BOYHOOD'S  MEMORIES 

ers.  "Amen,  Jacob,  carry  out  the  benches",  was  less  a 
jest  than  a  reality  which  we  boys  liked.  Give  a  boy  some 
muscular  as  well  as  spiritual  occupation  and  he  can  stand 
the  long  services. 

The  most  impressive  scenes  in  the  regular  church  services 
were  those  of  the  last  Sundays  in  March,  June,  September, 
and  December,  when  the  memorial  supper  of  the  Iyord,  as 
instituted  by  Him,  was  enjoyed.     This  celebration  of  Holy 
Communion  was  an  intensely  dramatic  as  well  as  a  moving 
scene.     Indeed,  sometimes,  on  the  highly  wrought  imagina- 
tion, and  under  the  melting  appeals  of  the  man  who  saw, 
felt,  and  lived  the  truth,  it  was  powerfully  remindful  of  the 
ultimate  division  between  the  sheep  and  the  goats.     All  the 
lower  part  of  the  church  was  reserved  for  and  occupied  by 
the  communicants.     In  addition,  as  I  remember  seeing  more 
than  once,  the  aisles  were  thronged  even  to  the  pulpit  stairs. 
Of  the  thirteen  hundred  and  more  members  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  was  likely  to  be  present  at  communion  seasons. 
The   gallery    was   reserved   and   usually   filled,    yes,    often 
packed,  with  the  "  sinners  ",  to  whom,  in  the  course  of  the 
services,    with   streaming   eyes   and   imploring  hands,  John 
Chambers  would  make  intensely  personal  and  moving  ap- 
peals, which,  perhaps  in  hundreds  of  cases,  wrought  decision. 
To  this   day   "the  galleries"   in   any  edifice  have  to  me  a 
suggestion  of  impenitence  about  them.     Nevertheless  how, 
and  particularly  why,  as  I  read,  the  king  was  "  held  cap- 
tive in  the  galleries  "  (Song  vii.,  5),  was  utterly  beyond  my 
boyish  comprehension. 

One  of  these  seasons,  which  marked  my  own  first  partici- 
pation in  the  sacrament,  I  well  remember,  being  but  four- 
teen years  old,  the  number  uniting  at  this  time  being  about 
forty-four.  We  made  two  lines  along  the  pew  fronts  on 
either  side  of  the  aisle. 

73 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Another  famous  occasion  was  that  of  June,  1858,  in  the 
time  of  the  great  revival  which  swept  over  the  land,  and 
especially  Philadelphia.  Of  seventy  new  members  added, 
twenty-seven  were  baptized  by  the  pastor.  Of  the  seventy, 
sixty-seven  were  received  on  first  confession  of  faith  after 
examination  and  three  by  letter. 

A  writer  in  the  Christian  Observer  oi  Philadelphia  describ- 
ing the  scene,  remarks:  "The  pastor  administered  the  or- 
dinance of  baptism.  The  charges  he  gave  them  severally, 
as  he  baptized  them  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  the 
Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  were  various,  scriptural,  appro- 
priate— words  of  hallowed  counsel,  touching  the  great  end 
of  life — are  never  to  be  forgotten.  As  the  seventy  stood  be- 
fore that  immense  audience,  professing  their  faith  in  Christ, 
their  ever  living,  reigning  Saviour,  and  as  the  pastor  ad- 
dressed them  and  the  large  assembly  of  communicants  in 
words  of  life  and  truth,  in  which  all  seemed  to  feel  a  living 
interest,  the  scene  was  solemn,  grand,  and  glorious.  We 
were  ready  to  exclaim  :  '  This  is  none  other  but  the  house 
of  God  and  this  is  the  gate  of  Heaven  ' .  The  distribution 
of  the  bread  and  the  wine  to  the  thousand  or  twelve  hun- 
dred communicants  occupied  nearly  an  hour.  The  church 
was  then  briefly  addressed  by  Dr.  Converse  and  again  by 
the  pastor.  All  were  reminded  that  as  members  of  the 
church  they  were  not  their  own  ;  they  had  been  bought 
with  a  price  ;  redeemed  not  with  silver  and  gold,  but  with 
the  precious  blood  of  Christ  ". 

On  his  fiftieth  anniversary,  Dr.  Chambers  said:  "The 
ordinance  of  the  Lord's  Supper  has  been  administered  every 
quarter  of  a  year  for  the  last  fifty  years,  and  there  has  been 
but  one  communion  during  the  whole  time  when  there  were 
not  additions,  and  that  was  one  of  the  quarters  when  I  was 
in  Europe.     We   have  never  received  at  any  single   time 

74 


BOYHOOD'S  MEMORIES 

fewer  than  seven,  and  no  more  at  one  time  than  one  hundred 
and  twenty  to  the  communion.  I  state  these  facts  that  you 
see  how  good  God  has  been  to  us,  and  how  great  our  debt  is. " 
I  am  very  frank  to  say  that,  as  a  small  boy,  the  moment 
of  dismission  from  the  church  service,  after  three  hours  in- 
doors, was  a  very  happy  one,  and  the  event  usually  awaited 
with  pleasure  as  the  crowning  circumstance  of  the  function. 
Truth  compels  me  to  state  that  my  facility  and  celerity  in 
covering  the  distance  along  the  north  side  aisle,  between 
the  pew  door  and  the  vestibule,  was  something  that  often 
amazed  my  elders.  Our  pew  was  third  from  the  front,  but 
I  reached  the  doorway,  not  wholly  out  of  breath,  nor  usually 
mixed  up  in  the  crowd.  I  always  did  have  an  admiration 
for  Elijah  who  could  outrun  Ahab's  chariot  and  horses. 
The  truth  also  compels  me  to  add  that  my  idea  of  happiness, 
at  12  M.,  was  to  join  that  amazingly  large  "curb-stone 
committee"  of  boys  and  men,  often  three  or  four  deep, 
which  gathered  on  the  edge  of  the  pavement,  among  and 
in  front  of  the  "tree  boxes" — for  Broad  Street  was  lined 
with  trees  then — in  order  to  see  the  thousand  or  more 
people  come  out  of  the  vestibule  and  down  two  sets  of  steps 
to  the  pavement.  This  was  the  time  when,  in  my  eyes, 
young  girls  were  the  prettiest, — even  more  than  they  have 
ever  beeii  since,  and  nearly  everything  in  the  world  was 
usually  bright  and  glorious,  even  though  I  had  many  boy- 
ish sorrows  unknown  to  the  world.  I  must  be  self  righteous 
to  confess  that  often  it  chanced,  that  while  I  had  been 
genuinely  "  at  church"  and  inside  of  it,  not  a  few  of  the 
' '  curbstone  committee  ' '  were  young  men  (with  some  older 
ones)  who  had  not  been  in  church  at  all,  but  had  come  to 
escort  the  pretty  girls  home,  or  to  meet  their  friends  ; 
though  of  course  the  great  majority  around  the  "tree 
boxes"    had   been   listeners,    if   not    worshippers     within. 

75 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Usually  on  the  large  stone  platform,  between  the  entrance 
door  and  the  columns,  the  pleasant  friendly  interviews  and 
final  handshakes  with  pastor  and  parishoners  and  friends 
in  general,  took  place. 

It  was  about  half  past  twelve  when  we  arrived  home,  on 
Twentieth  street  four  doors  south  of  Chestnut.  Father, 
mother  and  seven  children,  the  normal  family,  and  often 
with  guests,  enjoyed,  after  due  thanks  to  God,  the  bountiful 
fare,  and  the  one  hour  of  the  week  when  the  head  of  the 
house  was  present  at  the  mid-day  meal.  Then  about  1:40 
p.  M. ,  we  were  off  again  to  Sunday  School  which  opened  at 
two  o'clock,  and  which  once  a  month  took  the  form  of  a 
Temperance  or  a  Missionary  meeting.  At  times,  besides 
the  appropriate  singing  and  special  addresses,  often  from 
the  Master's  envoys  abroad,  but  home  on  a  furlough,  we  had 
the  missionary  news  from  all  parts  of  the  world  read  to  us. 
I  remember  particularly  the  presence  and  words  of  two 
Christian  Indians  from  Kansas.  One  speaker,  among  many, 
whom  I  well  remember  hearing,  was  Rev.  Wilder,  the 
founder  of  the  Week  of  Prayer.  Among  other  enterprises, 
in  which  my  boyish  energies  were  enlisted,  was  that  of  se- 
curing contributions  in  money  for  the  equivalent  of  one  or 
more  bricks  in  the  American  Sunday  School  Union  building 
on  Chestnut  Street.  Another  was  the  financing  of  two  and 
a  half  shares  in  the  missionary  ship  Morning  Star.  I 
remember  how  the  pastor  thrilled  us  with  the  news  of  the 
Reed  treaty  of  1858,  saying  "  China  is  open  to  the  gospel  ". 
The  Yedo  embassy  of  1861,  giving  me  my  first  sight  of  men 
from  the  Mikado's  empire — and  especially  as  I  saw 
1 '  Tommy  ' '  and  others  at  short  range  on  Chestnut  street — 
powerfully  impressed  my  imagination.  I  little  knew  at  the 
time  that  I  should  be  an  educational  pioneer  in  the  then 
distant  archipelago.1 

1  See  The  Mikado's  Empire,  Townsend  Harris,  Life  of  Commodore 
Matthew  Calbraith  Perry,  Japan  in  History,  Folk-lore  and  Art,  The 
Religions  of  Japan,  etc. 

76 


BOYHOOD'S  MEMORIES 

The  afternoon  Sunday  School  over,  the  preaching  and 
worship  in  the  auditorium  above  usually  attracted  a  much 
larger  crowd  than  in  the  morning.  Often  I  have  seen  every 
available  space  in  the  aisles,  stairways,  vestibule  and  pulpit 
platform  taken  up. 

The  afternoon  exit  to  the  small  boy  was  even  more  inter- 
esting than  in  the  morning,  for  the  pavement  and  ' '  church 
parade  "  show  was  greater.  Hence,  also,  for  purposes  other 
than  of  strict  devotion  the  said  small  boy  usually  took  his 
seat  in  the  gallery,  near  the  head  of  the  stairs.  The  bene- 
diction over,  he  was  promptly  on  the  side  walk  to  see  the 
largest  number  of  pretty  girls,  and  other  people  more  or  less 
interesting. 

At  home,  from  half  past  five  until  seven  o'clock  was  a 
happy  time,  sitting  on  father's  knee,  while  he  told  us  stories 
of  his  voyages  to  Manila  or  Africa,  or  Holland,  or  of  his 
travels  on  different  continents,  and  among  many  kinds  of 
people.  As  we  grew  older  the  interesting  library  book,  and 
the  bright  chat  and  pleasure  round  the  supper  table  made 
the  time  fly  until  7:10  or  7:15,  when  we  started  for  the 
prayer  meeting,  which,  year  after  year,  was  as  I  remember 
it,  held  in  the  lower  room.  It  was  attended  by  from  four 
hundred  to  seven  hundred  people,  frequently  every  seat 
being  occupied,  with  settees  down  the  aisles  to  hold  those 
who  could  not  get  in  the  cushioned  pews. 

The  old,  long  and  imposing  mahogany  pulpit  from  the 
old  church  auditorium,  but  without  its  stairways,  had  been 
set  into  the  lecture  room  of  the  new  and  enlarged  building. 
While  the  leader  of  the  prayer  meeting  occupied  the  space 
up  and  inside,  Dr.  Chambers  sat  below  and  in  front  on  a 
large  chair,  immediately  outside  the  pulpit,  his  head  being 
just  under  the  crimson  velvet  cushion  on  which  the  Bible 
rested.     The  front  row  of  seats,  as  I  remember,  was  usually 

77 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

filled  by  a  dozen  or  so,  more  or  less,  of  devoted  women,  who 
probably,  next  after  God  and  as  His  most  trusted  represen- 
tative on  earth,  worshipped  their  pastor.  To  the  left,  or 
eastward  on  the  first  seat,  sat  Mr.  Newland,  the  choir  mas- 
ter, who  started  the  tunes. 

The  storage  battery  of  power  was  in  the  half  dozen  or  so 
pews  running  north  and  south  over  in  the  northeast  corner, 
at  right  angles  to  the  general  line  of  seats.  Crowded  with 
twenty  to  forty  out  of  the  nearly  one  hundred  men  in  the 
church,  young  and  old,  who  could  and  would  take  part  in 
the  prayer  meeting,  they  formed  a  reserve  force  of  which 
any  pastor  might  be  proud.  Those  not  sitting  in  these 
special  pews  were  usually  ranged  somewhere  near  that 
famous  corner,  though  occasionally,  for  best  effect,  they 
chose  seats  more  generally  distributed  throughout  the  audi- 
ence. Men  like  Burtis,  Steinmetz,  Smith  and  Walton,  as  I 
remember,  were  always  clear,  strong,  edifying,  speaking  out 
of  fullness  as  well  as  conviction.  Some  of  their  prayers  will 
never  be  forgotten.  As  the  alabaster  cruse  of  memory 
breaks  from  time  to  time  into  recollection,  the  sweet  aroma 
fills  all  the  house  of  the  soul. 

Among  those  in  this  citadel  and  stronghold  of  these  de- 
lightful meetings  who  used  most  warmly  to  pray  was  an 
Irish  brother,  who  once  petitioned  most  fervently  that  upon 
the  pastor  might  descend  "the  fullness  of  the  godhead 
bodily  ".  There  were  exaggerations  in  the  old  church,  but 
they  were  usually  on  the  right  side. 

Bliss,  Wanamaker,  Seldomridge  and  other  young  men,  as 
I  see  them  in  my  mind's  eye,  often  sat  on  the  western  side. 

Almost  invariably  in  times  of  spiritual  interest,  which 
was,  as  it  seems  to  me,  pretty  frequent,  constant  and  gen- 
eral, and  almost  certainly  so  in  the  midwinter,  the  pastor, 
toward  the  end  of  the  hour  would  retire  into  the  committee 

73 


BOYHOOD'S  MEMORIES 

room — not  then  called  "  inquiry  room  ".  Those  who  wished 
to  meet  him,  or  rather  could  not  resist  his  appealing  invita- 
tions, would  rise  from  their  places  and  reach  their  waiting 
and  praying  leader.  This  they  did  by  passing  westward, 
either  through  the  southern  or  the  northern  door  and  rooms 
leading  out  from  the  prayer  meeting  room.  After  travers- 
ing some  yards  of  a  space,  short  and  direct  on  the  south 
side,  longer  and  more  diagonal  on  the  north  side,  "the 
trembling  sinner  in  whose  breast  a  thousand  thoughts  re- 
volve", reached  the  friend  of  their  souls.  Sometimes,  in- 
deed, Mr.  Chambers  had  no  one  to  meet  him,  but  usually 
there  were  from  two  to  twenty  persons  with  whom  he  had  a 
word  and  perhaps  a  prayer.  In  that  room  hundreds  of  de- 
cisions were  made  which  affected  souls  for  eternity.  I  shall 
never  forget  my  journey  thither  and  the  warm  words  that 
welcomed,  warned,  and  secured  decision.  That  night  the 
hymn  was  "  O,  to  grace  how  great  a  debtor  ".  Nor  could 
I,  even  if  I  would,  let  slip  into  oblivion  the  meeting  of  the 
Session  a  few  evenings  later  in  the  same  room.  The  decis- 
ion of  the  boy  to  "  turn  to  the  right  and  go  straight  ahead  ", 
seemed  too  sudden  for  one  elder,  and  he  spoke  against  im- 
mediate reception  and  advised  postponement.  So  quick  a 
change  from  mischief  to  seriousness  seemed  suspicious,  if 
not  dangerous. 

God  bless  Rudolph  S.  Walton,  transparent  in  his  honesty 
as  Japanese  crystal  !  How  often  we  laughed  over  it  after- 
wards— his  brief  mistrust  of  me — as  ' '  holding  forth  the 
word  of  life  ' '  we  cheered  each  other  on  in  the  Christian 
Way. 

Although  the  Sabbaths  were  thus  filled  up  and  strictly 
kept,  no  days  seemed  more  sunny  and  joyous.  The  week- 
night  services  were  the  lecture  on  Wednesday  evening  and 
prayer  meeting  on  Friday.     Often  the   first  service  took  the 

79 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

form  of  a  big  social  Bible  class,  when  in  the  Socratic  way, 
by  question  and  answer,  we  learned  more  of  God  and  of  His 
wonderful  Word. 

11  All  this  work  was  made  easy  by  the  inspiration  of  our 
pastor  ....  No  one  could  continue  long  a  member  of  this 
church  without  finding  something  to  do." 

Nor  was  this  all.  Besides  "the  untiring  industry,  the 
earnest  manner  and  the  burning  eloquence  "  of  the  pastor, 
he  made  us  all  as  one  family,  by  his  own  fine  manners  and 
his  training  of  us  in  sociability.  We  had  to  be  hospitable 
and  act  towards  the  unknown  stranger,  in  each  case,  as  if 
we  might  possibly  entertain  an  angel  unawares.  I  remem- 
ber once  seeing,  about  1856,  I  think,  a  slender,  bashful 
young  man  come  to  our  Sunday  School.  He  carried  his 
lunch  in  his  pocket,  so  as  to  attend  both  sessions,  and 
church  also,  for  between  12  and  2,  there  was  not  time  to 
walk  to  and  back  from  his  home  far  distant  in  the  south 
end  of  the  city,  somewhere  near  "  the  Neck."  My  mother 
spoke  to  him  and  invited  him  to  our  house  to  dinner.  I 
learned  to  know  well,  to  honor  and  to  love  the  young  man, 
looking  up  to  him  for  inspiration  and  cheer.  He  became 
one  of  John  Chambers's  "  three  big  W's."  He  is  now  one 
of  Philadelphia's  merchant  princes,  a  maker  of  the  new 
Quaker  city,  a  tireless  worker  for  God  and  man. 


80 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  MASTER  OF  ASSEMBLIES. 

Though  active  in  the  multifarious  duties  of  the  pastorate 
and  along  many  lines  of  activity  and  reform  in  a  large  city, 
always  foremost,  both  on  the  firing  line,  or  in  the  charge, 
in  that  unending  battle  against  evil,  John  Chambers  made 
the  pulpit  his  first  thought.  He  did  this  in  his  own  way 
and  according  to  his  own  methods.  He  rarely  if  ever  wrote 
out  his  sermons.  After  due  preliminary  study  and  renew- 
ing of  his  strength  by  waiting,  in  prayer,  upon  God,  he 
entered  the  pulpit.  He  depended  largely  upon  being  in 
first  class  physical  condition,  upon  the  inspiration  of  the 
moment,  gaining  much  by  induction  from  his  audience  and 
the  circumstances,  while  trusting  heartily  in  the  presence 
and  blessing  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  upon  whom  he  continually 
waited. 

John  Chambers  believed  in  thorough  public  announce- 
ment. A  true  herald,  he  first  made  sure  of  calling  together 
the  assembly.  By  this  he  sometimes  set  as  much  store,  as 
he  did  upon  the  proclamation  of  the  message  itself.  On 
himself  he  laid  the  responsibility  of  his  hearers'  attention. 
In  the  main,  his  preaching  was  of  the  character  expressed 
by  the  New  Testament  Greek  word  kerusso  (proclaim),  as 
well  as  by  the  word  eva?igelizo. 

John  Chambers  was  the  first  minister  in  Philadelphia  to 
advertize  the  subjects  of  his  sermons  as  well  as  the  hour  and 
place  of  their  delivery.  He  thus  initiated  for  their  pub- 
lishers a  line  of  profitable  revenue.  In  the  Public  Ledger, 
especially,  one  may,  by  looking  over  the  files,  see  the  range 
and  timeliness  of  his  discourses.  The  topics  were  "sensa- 
tional ",  in  the  best  meaning  of  that  term. 
6  81 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Being  himself  "  of  infinite  wit  ",  the  pastor  had  an  eye 
and  a  feeling  for  the  humor  of  some  of  the  situations  which 
he  created  by  his  pulpit  advertising.  As  a  matter  of  course 
and  of  human  nature,  around  so  superb  a  beacon,  many 
bats  and  strange  birds  flitted.  Parasites  and  hangers-on, 
as  well  as  men  and  women  who  wished  to  exploit  themselves 
financially  and  for  their  own  glory,  and  rise  into  notoriety 
on  his  fame,  sometimes  pestered  him.  For  example,  on 
seeing  in  the  Saturday  morning's  Public  Ledger,  that  the 
theme  of  the  popular  preacher  in  the  First  Independent 
Church  was  to  be  "  On  the  importance  of  a  man's  having 
his  life  insured  ",  one  3'outh  resolved  to  make  gain  of  god- 
liness. Mr.  Chambers,  while  in  his  study,  a  front  room  in 
his  house  at  Twelfth  and  Girard  streets,  which  opened  into 
the  hall  near  the  front  door,  was  surprised  to  have  ushered 
in  upon  him  a  young  man  with  a  small  arm  load  of  insur- 
ance literature  and  advertisements.  The  visitor  strove  to 
prove  that  a  certain  insurance  company  of  Philadelphia  was 
the  best  in  the  world.  Having  expected  to  get  Mr. 
Chambers  to  recommend  from  the  pulpit  this  particular 
corporation,  he  went  away  sorrowful,  for  he  had  had  great 
expectations.  Nevertheless  from  the  tact,  worldly  wisdom, 
persistence  and  importunity  of  even  the  average  life  in- 
surance agent,  what  lazy  Christian  cannot  learn-a  lesson  ? 

Mr.  Chambers  always  knew  of  the  great  preachers,  not 
onty  in  Philadelphia,  but  in  other  cities.  Although,  very 
properly,  he  never  recommended  his  members  to  attend  on 
the  ministry  of  others,  he  did  warmly  urge  his  nephew, 
Milner,  when  visiting  Philadelphia,  to  go  and  hear  Philips 
Brooks,  and  he  himself  went  with  him  to  listen  to  Dr.  Tal- 
mage. 

When  the  grand  rector  of  Holy  Trinity  called  on  me  in 
Boston,  as  he  did  more  than  once  (for  he,  too,  loved  Japan), 

82 


THE  MASTER  OF  ASSEMBLIES 

and  saw  hanging  on  the  wall  of  my  study  a  certain  portrait 
of  his  Philadelphia  neighbor  and  friend,  he  cried  out  : 
"  What  a  Grand  old  Roman  !  Did  you  know  John  Cham- 
bers ?  "  Then  he  burst  forth  into  hearty  panegyric  of  the 
old  "  war  horse  ",  and  seemed  delighted  that  I  was  one  of 
his  boys.  Later  on,  when  our  people  in  the  Shawmut 
Church  helped  a  native  missionary  to  Japan  and  several 
Japanese  lads  from  the  U.  S.  White  Squadron,  then  in  Bos- 
ton harbor,  were  present,  Dr.  Philips  Brooks  spoke  to  my 
people. 

After  my  address  in  the  Chambers- Wylie  Memorial 
Church  on  the  "Historical  Night",  December  n,  1901,  I 
gave  my  people  in  Ithaca  an  account  of  the  great  Philadel- 
phia pastor.  The  brief  notice  of  John  Chambers  in  the 
Cyclopedia  of  Temperance  and  Prohibition  (New  York, 
1890),  is  also  from  the  biographer. 

It  is  only  fair  history  to  set  down  that  in  sermon  prepara- 
tion the  pastor  and  his  pen  were  not  always  closely  ac- 
quainted with  each  other.  No  two  men  were  more  different 
in  this  respect  than  Albert  Barnes  and  John  Chambers. 
Much  as  they  loved  and  admired  each  other,  their  habits 
were  very  unlike.  The  former  spent  from  five  o'clock  until 
nine  every  morning  of  his  life  in  his  study  searching  the 
oracles  of  God  in  languages  old  and  new.  It  was  his  habit 
to  throw  down  his  pen  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  or  even 
a  word,  on  the  clock  stroke.  The  popular  preacher  made 
light  of  spending  too  much  time  in  the  study  and  urged 
more  personal  work  with  men.  More  than  once  Mr.  Cham- 
bers passed  his  joke  with  the  scholar. 

Yet  to-day  Albert  Barnes  is  still  teaching  the  Gospel 
through  his  commentaries,  in  many  tongues  and  countries, 
almost  "  all  nations  ",  after  having  educated  a  whole  gen- 
eration of  American  ministers  and  Sunday  School  teachers. 

83 


JOHN   CHAMBERS 

On  the  other  hand  John  Chambers  still  preaches  in  the 
lives  of  his  disciples,  in  the  church  edifices  which  they  have 
reared,  in  the  congregations  they  have  gathered,  and  in  ever 
expanding  circles  of  unseen  but  potent  influence. 

As  a  boy,  when  Albert  Barnes,  aged  and  venerable,  al- 
most blind  through  his  long-continued  labors  which  had  so 
tried  his  eyes,  met  me  on  the  street  and  asked  me  some 
question  as  to  the  place  and  person  of  the  funeral  of  a  friend 
mutually  dear,  I  remember  with  what  reverence  I  looked  up 
to  the  great  scholar  and  the  fearless  champion  of  spiritual 
freedom.  I  realized  even  then  the  shade  of  difference  in 
feeling  from  that  which  I  nourished  toward  my  grand  pas- 
tor. Nevertheless,  God  needs  both  kinds  of  servants.  The 
suggestions  of  Socrates,  as  to  writing  both  on  the  skins  of 
animals  and  on  the  tablets  of  the  human  heart,  are  in  point 
here. 

The  comparison  made  between  Albert  Barnes  and  John 
Chambers  is  much  like  that  in  the  modern  story  of  "  Ver- 
beck  of  Japan  "  and  of  Samuel  R.  Brown,  "  A  Maker  of  the 
New  Orient  ",  perhaps,  also,  as  the  parable  of  the  leaven  in 
each  case. 

These  were  the  days  of  the  infidel's  Bible  as  well  as  the 
saints'  Word  of  God,  the  era  of  King  James's  Version  and 
of  the  old  crude  theories  of  verbal  inspiration.  It  was  on 
such  theories  and  on  such  alone,  that  such  unlearned  men, 
meretricious  platform  speakers,  and  ephemeral  secularists, 
as  Joseph  Barker,  Robert  Ingersoll,  and  Charles  Bradlaugh 
could  thrive.  The  climates,  both  of  popular  and  orthodox 
theology  and  of  infidelity,  were  somewhat  different  from  the 
cosmic  influences  of  to-day.  The  arguments  of  unfaith 
were,  for  the  most  part  at  least,  the  old  common,  shallow, 
and  blatant  ones.  The  theological  parasites  and  bacilli 
were  as  harmful,  and  in   God's  providence  as  useful,  then  as 

84 


THE  MASTER  OF  ASSEMBLIES 

now,  but  I  think  popular  orthodoxy  and  the  average  pulpit 
furnished  much  of  the  food  for  the  obnoxious  microbes,  and 
even  made  congenial  "cultures"  for  the  peculiar  varieties 
existing  then. 

The  unbeliever  fed  his  mind  and  starved  his  soul  on  the 
arguments  of  Mr.  Paine, — not  the  Thomas  Paine  of  the 
American  War  of  Independence,  when  he  sounded  the 
trumpet  for  freedom,  but  the  Thomas  Paine  of  the  French 
Revolution,  who,  long  after  his  stirring  appeals  to  American 
patriotism,  wrote  the  Age  of  Reason.  In  view  of  the  fact 
that  the  little  thoroughfare  in  old  New  York,  named  in  his 
honor,  Reason  Street,  has  long  since  become  corrupted  into 
Raisin  street,  (wherein  we  read  a  parable)  Mr.  Paine's  argu- 
ments seem  jejune  enough.  For  Paine  the  patriot  and 
public  servant,  all  Americans  should  have  the  highest 
respect.  I  remember  that  my  English  grand-father,  Captain 
John  I,.  Griffis,  of  the  Mariner's  Society  of  Philadelphia 
which  usually  met  in  historic  Carpenters'  Hall,  received  his 
certificate  of  membership  from  Thomas  Paine,  the  secretary. 
He  had  then  no  taint  of  theological  rancor  associated  with 
his  name,  which  clericals,  who  are  not  necessarily  better 
Christians  than  laymen,  are  too  apt  to  shorten  to  "Tom". 

There  was  a  society  of  biblical  critics  and  amateur  theo- 
logians, commonly  called  infidels  or  even  "atheists",  who 
gathered  under  the  name  of  the  Sunday  Institute.  These 
worthies  met  together  on  the  Lord's  Day  in  a  hall  in  Sixth 
street  above  Race,  and  frequently  discussed  the  themes  and 
sermons  of  Mr.  Chambers,  sometimes,  as  it  seemed,  in  a 
blasphemous  as  well  as  irreverent  style.  Like  Mr.  Cham- 
bers, they  advertised  their  subjects  in  the  Public  Ledger.  I 
remember  one  of  them,  seeing  I  was  a  "  Chamberite ", 
pointed  out  to  me  the  "  discrepancies"  of  the  Bible,  such  as 
apologists  on  the  one  hand  were  in  those  days  continually 

§5 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

trying  to  ' '  explain  ' ' ,  while  the  sceptic  on  the  other  enlarged 
them  under  his  microscope.  This  old  scorner  called  my 
attention  to  the  fact  that  "  artillery  "  (I  Samuel  XX:  40) 
was  mentioned  in  the  Bible  as  belonging  to  those  early  days. 
Hence  it  could  not  be  inspired  of  God  !  He  prophesied  that 
Christianity  as  a  delusion  would  soon  pass  away,  and  he 
recommended  me  to  read  Volney's  "Ruins".  How  tired 
such  men  must  be  waiting  for  the  religion  of  Jesus  to  die  ! 
Alas,  for  them,  the  corpse  always  fails  to  be  ready  ! 

Many  a  time  have  I  seen  in  the  church  gallery  a  Vol- 
tairean  looking  old  gentleman,  who  took  notes  and  seemed 
to  be  immense^  tickled  at  some  of  the  denunciations  of 
himself  and  his  fellows  by  the  pulpit  orator.  Dr.  Chambers 
was  rather  free  in  handling  the  English  Philosopher,  whom 
he  usually  spoke  of  as  "Tom  Paine"  thereby  making  at 
least  one  boy  determined  that,  if  ever  he  became  a  minister, 
he  would  give,  if  possible,  even  the  devil  his  due  and  speak 
of  doubting  Thomas  with  his  full  name. 

The  Sunday  Despatch  was  the  first  newspaper  in  Phila- 
delphia to  practice  seven  days'  journalism,  thereby  shock- 
ing the  feelings  of  those  who  could  conscientiously  read 
a  Monday  morning  paper  printed  during  Sunday  hours.  Of 
course  the  preacher  fulminated  against  this  innovation.  It 
is  a  curious  commentary  on  the  change  in  public  sentiment 
and  practice,  that  on  the  spot  in  which  Sunday  journalism 
was  so  often  and  perhaps  righteously  denounced,  there  is 
published  the  popular  newspaper  which  knows  no  Sabbath 
in  its  issues. 

The  days  either  of  the  destructive  higher  criticism  of  con- 
secrated critical  scholarship  had  not  yet  come  to  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic,  nor  had  the  grand  work  been  done  by  Dr. 
Charles  A.  Briggs,  the  pioneer,  and  the  host  of  consecrated 
biblical  scholars  after  him,  which  has  cut  the  ground  from 

86 


THE  MASTER  OF  ASSEMBLIES 

under  the  feet  of  Ingersollism.  Practically  unanimous  in 
brushing  away  the  cobwebs  of  scholasticism  and  tradition, 
these  consecrated  men  have  helped,  by  God's  blessing,  to 
make  the  Bible  the  Heavenly  Father's  book  as  fresh  as  if 
written  yesterday.  They  have  driven  infidelity  out  of  its 
old  strongholds  and  compelled  doubt  and  unbelief  to  find 
new  excuses  and  fortifications. 

In  the  wars  of  the  Lord  the  pastor  liked  nothing  better 
than  opposition  and  obstacles,  especially  such  as  could  be 
overcome  by  spiritual  weapons.  With  the  inheritance  of 
his  fighting  ancestors  he  had  the  true  Irishman's  instinct 
for  the  martial  fray  ;  only  his  inheritances  were  turned  to  a 
nobler  use  and  grandly  were  they  consecrated.  His  preach- 
ing was  just  of  the  sort  to  equip  his  average  hearer  against 
the  insidious  attacks  of  unbelief,  the  freezing  effects  of  con- 
ventionalism, and  the  paralysis  of  sinful  pleasure.  Many  a 
mighty  blow  was  delivered  against  the  literature  that  under- 
mined faith  and  morals.  I  need  not  speak  of  the  obscene 
books  and  papers  which  had  not  then  met  their  Comstock. 
Against  such  soul-destroying  devices  and  their  makers, 
John  Chambers  was  as  an  unchained  lion. 

I  remember  how  Renan's  Life  of  Jesus  carried  cap- 
tive many  a  weak  intellect.  Though  manifestly  few 
men  of  discernment  would  be  likely  to  misunderstand  its 
animus,  some  were  mistaken  as  to  its  true  import.  One 
lady  who  gave  me  a  copy,  said  as  she  handed  it  to  me, 
"  Will,  this  is  a  beautiful  life  of  Christ.  I  hope  it  will  lead 
you  to  Jesus".  I  need  hardly  say  that  in  my  work  of 
leading  men  to  the  Master  and  into  truth,  I  have  never 
recommended  this  shallow  romance,  medicated  with  a  "re- 
ligious "  purpose,  which  turns  historic  reality  into  cunningly 
devised  fables.  Against  such  insidious  trash,  even  under 
so  grand  a  title,  and  the  writings  which  were  the   vehicles 

37 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

of  sensuality  more  or  less  veiled,  the  great  pastor  guided 
his  flock  into  purity  and  strength  of  life. 

Perhaps  the  best  idea  of  the  general  scope  and  tenor  of 
the  stated  preaching  of  John  Chambers  in  his  prime,  and 
the  general  method  of  his  presentation  of  truth,  may  be 
gained  by  collating  from  the  advertising  columns  of  the 
Public  Ledger,  his  announcements  made  on  Saturdays,  say, 
from  April  3rd,  1858,  until  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil 
War.  Only  the  afternoon  subject  was  announced.  The 
pastor's  idea  was  that  in  the  morning  edification,  thorough 
expository  preaching  and  pastoral  counsels  to  his  own  flock 
should  be  the  rule,  while  the  second  service  might  serve  for 
stimulus,  appeal  to  the  public  conscience,  and  the  discus- 
sion of  a  wider  range  of  subjects.  Usually  the  text  was 
given  with  the  topic. 

Behold  here  a  selection  of  topics  from  the  Ledger  an- 
nouncements. I  could  greatly  increase  the  list  from  my 
own  diary,  but  a  few  will  suffice  as  specimens  : 

Is  the  religious  movement  of  the  day,  of  God?  Acts  v.  : 

33,  34- 

Two  sermons  were  especially  for  the  benefit  of  those 
likely  to  be  influenced  by  the  Sunday  Institute  : 

1.  Infidels.  The  malignant  deception  of  infidels  against 
Christianity. 

2.  Christianity.  Opposition  to  Christianity  has  always 
been  malignant  and  unreasonable.  Matthew  XXVII:  19,  20. 

This  was  the  year  of  the  spiritual  refreshing  following, 
as  great  revivals  in  America  generally  do,  a  financial 
panic — that  of  1857. 

Revival.  How  God's  people  must  work  that  the  revival 
cease  not. 

Previous  to  the  war,  John  Chambers  was  exceedingly 
popular  with  most  of  the  public  bodies  of  men,  especially 
with  the  volunteer  firemen. 


THE  MASTER  OF  ASSEMBLIES 

Sermon  to  firemen.  By  request  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  in 
National  Hall,  Sunday  Evening,  May  22nd. 

Like  all  of  God's  true  children  in  Christ  Jesus,  John 
Chambers  longed  for  the  unity  of  the  church,  and,  as  I 
think,  did  far  more  by  his  spirit  and  life  for  its  accomplish, 
ment  than  most  of  those  who  talk  much  on  this  subject. 

Query.  Can  the  world  be  converted  until  the  Church  is 
united  ? 

Three  famous  June  sermons  were  on  the  Divinity  of 
Christ. 

A  champion  of  lay  preaching  and  evangelism,  he  treated 
the  question  :  Is  religious  teaching  to  be  confined  to  the 
ministry  ? 

Are  the  objections  made  to  persons  letting  their  religious 
wants  be  publicly  known  Scriptural  ? 

In  1859,  beginning  with  October,  we  find  the  following  : 

By  request,  a  sermon  on  II  Peter  :  II,  20.  Annihilation. 
The  doctrine  that  gives  great  encouragement  for  the  wicked 
to  live  in  sin. 

How  the  Apostolic  Church  lived  and  acted  and  the  results 
which  followed.     Acts  II,  41-47. 

Prayer.     Whom  God  will  hear  when  they  pray. 

Why  are  men  so  bitterly  opposed  to  the  religion  of  the 
Bible  ? 

Early  in  the  year  1861,  when  the  clouds  of  impending 
civil  war  were  lowering  to  blackness,  some  of  the  sermon 
themes  reveal  the  situation.  One  can  easily  "  read  between 
the  lines  ". 

Robbery.     Will  a  man  rob  God  ? 

Liberty  of  Speech. 

Religion.  The  incompatibility  between  Religion  as 
taught  in  the  Bible  and  the  lives  of  professed  Christians. 

Prejudice.     The  effects   of  prejudice  on  the  interests  of 

Christianity. 

89 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Civil  War.  Is  there  anything  in  the  commission  given 
by  Christ  to  ministers  that  justifies  them  in  encouraging 
civil  war  ? 

In  March  a  notable  course  was  given  on  the  rearing  of 
children. 

The  proper  training  of  children. 

How  are  children  to  be  trained  ? 

By  whom  and  for  what  are  children  to  be  trained  ? 

If  children  are  properly  trained  will  they  depart  therefrom 
when  old  ? 

How  are  the  young  men  and  lads  who  congregate  about 
dram  shops,  street  corners,  engine  houses,  etc.,  etc.,  to  be 
saved  ? 

Not  a  little  of  his  morning  preaching  was,  as  we  have 
said,  in  the  line  of  expository  discourse.  This,  from  a 
coldly  critical  point  of  view,  could  not  be  called  scholarly, 
and  was  rather  repetitious,  but  it  was  thoroughly  practical 
and  characteristic,  and  the  love  which  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  people  bore  to  their  pastor  made  every  word 
tell,  so  that  defects  were  largely  forgotten.  He  had  certain 
pet  words  which  he  rather  overworked,  and,  to  say  the 
least,  some  mannerisms.  His  method  was  to  quote  frequently 
from  the  scriptures,  and,  in  his  later  days,  with  many  a  page 
turned  down  at  the  corners  of  the  big  pulpit  Bible.  We  can 
see  him  yet,  as  with  one  hand  on  his  eye  glasses  and  nose 
near  the  page,  he  quickly  found  the  various  texts  desired  to 
support  his  arguments.  Mr.  Chambers,  as  Mr.  Moody 
would  put  it,  was  a  master  of  ' '  the  original  English  ' '  of 
King  James's  Version  of  the  Scriptures.  Occasionally  he 
slipped  on  a  word,  the  double  p's  seeming  especially  to 
bother  him  at  times.  His  particular  bete  noire  was  the  tenet 
of  the  limited  atonement,  and  if  there  was  anything  he  loved 
to  pound  at,  it  was  this.     What  he  gloried   in  was  the  pro- 

90 


THE  MASTER  OF  ASSEMBLIES 

claiming  and  strengthening,  with  proof  texts,  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  universal  atonement,  such  as  I  John,  ii.,  2.  In  one 
instance,  after  the  word  "propitiation"  had  on  his,  for 
once  recalcitrant  tongue,  reached  no  further  than  the  first 
syllable,  the  full  word  came  out  as  "  appropriation  ",  which 
was  not  so  far  from  the  idea  of  the  apostle  after  all. 

He  was  especially  impressive  in  the  reading  of  hymns, 
and  he  was  so,  because  as  it  seemed  to  us,  he  felt  so  deeply 
the  sentiment  expressed  in  the  words.  Memory  will  never 
allow  us  to  forget  his  frequent  rendering  of  "Oh  to  grace 
how  great  a  debtor  !  "  His  favorite  term  for  his  Best  Be- 
loved was  "Our  Lord  and  Master,"  but  whatever  name  he 
used,  one  always  knew  that  our  pastor  was  in  close  and 
daily  touch  with  Him  and  that  was  the  secret  of  his  godly 
life  and  his  power  for  good.  Other  hymns,  "There  is  a 
holy  city",  "  My  days  are  gliding  swiftly  by  "  (to  the  tune 
"  Shining  Shore  ")  and  some  that  are  rarely  heard  now, 
were  also  favorites  There  is  proof  to  the  memory  that  ' '  his- 
tory is  a  resurrection." 

John  Chambers  was  not  only  a  natural  orator  and  master 
in  the  pulpit,  but  he  also  made  an  admirable  presiding 
officer.  This  was  not  only  on  account  of  his  superb  and 
commanding  figure,  his  leonine  countenance  and  his  eagle 
eye,  but  also  because  of  his  ability  to  understand  an  audi- 
ence and  take  in  all  the  possibilities.  He  knew  just  at 
what  moment  to  test  its  powers.  His  glance  seemed  to  be 
an  individual  recognition  of  every  face.  It  was  not  until 
he  was  well  into  the  fifties  that  he  ever  used  spectacles  or 
eye-glasses,  and  even  when  his  brows  were  frosty  he  was 
able,  by  employing  the  best  oculists  and  the  right  lenses, 
to  see  apparently  everything  and  everybody  in  the  house. 
Many  a  time  he  turned  what  threatened  to  be  a  total  failure 
of  a  meeting  into  a  brilliant   success.     By  some   witty   re- 

91 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

mark,  a  thrilling  announcement,  a  touch  of  blarney — of 
which  he  was  always  easy  master,  or  a  dramatic  action  ac- 
companying some  winsome  invitation,  he  made  himself 
master  of  the  assembly.  By  original  and  ingenious  methods 
of  silencing,  shortening,  or  politely  extinguishing  bores, 
"platform  burglars  "  or  a  long-winded  or  unskilful  speaker, 
he  saved  the  day,  or  rather  the  night.  He  was  always  the 
refresher  of  weary  audiences. 

I  remember  when  a  certain  one  of  a  delegation  on  some 
really  worthy  charitable  enterprise,  after  addressing  an  au- 
dience not  specially  interested  in  the  matter  presented  to 
them,  made  the  remark  (in  conclusion)  that  "  thus  far  what 
they  had  received  had  not  paid  their  travelling  expenses  ". 
This  roused  the  big  heart  of  John  Chambers,  and  when 
that  was  warmed  Christians  had  to  look  out  for  their 
pocket-books.  Striding  forward  from  the  sofa,  he  cried 
out  :  "  Why,  brethren,  this  will  never  do  !  Let  the  trustees 
come  right  up  and  empty  out  the  baskets"  [a  collection  had 
already  been  taken]  "and  go  round  again".  A  burning 
plea  of  but  two  or  three  minutes  for  the  cause  followed  from 
his  lips.  Then  the  previous  contribution  was  tumbled  out 
of  the  boxes  on  the  carpet,  and  a  new  and  magnificent 
offering  was  made,  which  happily  proved  a  superb  precedent, 
so  that  the  delegation  went  back  happy. 

As  to  the  personal  appearance  of  the  preacher,  let  us  recall 
that  in  my  childhood  the  stock  and  rolling  collar  were  in 
fashion.  The  former  made  of  black  satin  was  stiffened  and 
made  to  spring  on  the  neck  with  wire.  Some  of  the  old 
leathern  stocks  were  still  visible  among  elderly  men,  many 
of  whom  still  wore  also  the  flap-front  breeches  and  were 
unable  to  approve  of  the  newer  style.  Usually  this  outer 
conservatism  of  dress,  was  the  index  of  inner  conservatism 
of  opinions,  theological  or  otherwise.     Dr.  Chambers  made 

92 


THE  MASTER  OF  ASSEMBLIES 

slight  change  in  the  cut  of  his  clothes  as  he  grew  older,  yet 
somehow  seemed  always,  as  to  his  outer  garb,  a  man  of  his 
age.  It  wTas  the  era  also  of  gold  headed  canes  and  of  watch 
fob  pockets  in  men's  trousers,  outside  of  wmich  hung  the 
watch  chain  or  ribbon,  with  gold  buckle  or  seal,  which,  by 
an  Americanism,  is  called  the  fob  itself.  Most  ministers, 
and  among  them  Mr.  Chambers,  wore  in  the  pulpit,  a  dress 
coat  and  a  low  cut  vest  showing  considerable  expanse  of 
wrhite  shirt  bosom,  which  then  had  pleats  an  inch  or  so  in 
width.  The  wratch  and  "  fob  "  were  taken  out  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  sermon,  laid  on  the  cushion  and  invariably  put 
back  just  before  the  sermon  ended,  a  sign  which  wre  small 
boys  of  course  welcomed.  As  a  rule,  it  was  coarse  manners 
to  snap  a  hunting  case  watch  in  John  Chambers's  presence, 
for  rarely  did  the  pastor  pass  the  bound  of  appointed  time, 
for  he  believed  that  punctuality  was  righteousness.  He 
kept  within  limits  and  his  moderation  was  known  to  all  men. 
I  do  not  remember  that  our  pastor  carried  a  gold  headed 
cane,  though  I  think  he  possessed  one  or  two.  His  boots 
were  always  immaculate  and  shining.  Standing  up  in  black 
and  white,  a  commanding  figure,  with  ruddy,  or  rather 
roseate  face,  and  stroking  his  hand  through  his  magnificent 
hair,  which  in  later  years  he  wore  behind  his  ears,  the  form 
and  mien  of  John  Chambers  are  imperishable  pictures  in 
memory.  In  hot  weather  it  was  his  custom,  on  going  home 
in  the  morning,  to  change  his  underclothing,  from  socks  to 
collar,  throughout.  Though  on  oppressively  hot  days  one 
might  occasionally,  after  a  service,  see  him  with  a  wilted 
collar,  yet  year  in  and  year  out,  the  impression  derived  was 
of  a  physical  personality  as  sweet  as  that  attributed  to 
Alexander  the  Great,  whose  close  acquaintance  with  water, 
in  its  cuticular  application,  was  held  up  to  us  youngsters  as 
a  delectable  example. 

93 


CHAPTER   XI. 

TRUE  YOKE-FELLOWS. 

One  secret  of  the  success  of  John  Chambers  lay  in  the 
power  which  he  had  under  God  of  attracting  good  men, 
capable  and  faithful  men  as  helpers,  and  inspiring  them 
with  loyalty  to  himself.  They  followed  him  as  he  followed 
Christ.  Though  independent  in  action,  his  was  the  coopera- 
tive type  of  mind  which  was  grandly  shown  in  the  continu- 
ous and  faithful  toil  necessary  for  the  growth  and  life  of  a 
church. 

The  government  of  the  First  Independent  Church  was 
Presbyterian  in  cast  and  form.  Indeed  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  a  Congregational  Church,  strictly  so  called,  could 
have  been  carried  on  by  the  people  of  such  intensely 
Presbyterian  training  and  inheritance  as  most  of  his  people 
were.  The  congregation  held  a  business  meeting  once  a 
year  and  the  trustees,  elected  by  the  pew  holders,  took 
charge  of  the  property,  the  edifice,  and  the  finances.  The 
elders  were  elected  for  life  by  the  vote  of  the  membership. 
There  were  no  deacons.  "  All  the  elders  added  to  the  elder- 
ship since  1825  have  been  active  praying  men  "  said  our 
pastor,  in  1875, 

Of  the  first  elders  I  have  no  remembrance,  though  I  think 
Matthew  Arrison  and  Thomas  Hibbert,  ordained  to  the 
eldership  in  1827,  were,  though  aged  men,  in  active  service 
when  I  was  a  little  child.  I  have  dim  remembrances  of 
these  two  veterans,  and  certainly  from  very  early  days  their 
names  in  our  home  were  household  words,  so  that  I  associate 
them  with  the  aroma  of  things  happy  and  lovely.  At  the 
name  of  Robert  Buist,  a  dignified  looking  gentleman  as  I 
remember  him,   and  who  married  the  sister  of  Mr.   Cham- 

94 


TRUE  YOKE-FELLOWS 

bers,  there  rise  up  visions  of  seeds,  bulbs,  flowers,  and 
gardens,  for  he  kept,  on  Chestnut,  or  Market  Street,  a  seed 
warehouse  ;  and  I  am  bound  to  say  (for  we  tried  them  in 
our  gardens),  that  his  seeds  would  grow.  In  1852,  he  re- 
moved from  the  city  and  resigned  his  eldership.  In  1857, 
two  years  after  I  entered  the  Sunday  School,  the  Session 
consisted  of  Robert  Luther,  Aaron  H.  Burtis,  John  Yard, 
Jr.,  Francis  Newland,  Daniel  Steinmetz,  and  Rudolph  S. 
Walton.  After  the  death  of  Mr.  Burtis,  Joseph  B.  Shep- 
pard  was  elected  to  fill  his  place.  I  remember  the  election, 
on  Wednesday  evening,  December  19th,  i860,  and  that  I 
voted  for  the  successful  candidate,  who  had  been  nominated 
by  Mr.  Chambers.  After  the  resignation  of  four  elders  in 
1861,  Richard  Smallbrook,  Thomas  P.  Dill,  Alexander 
Brown  and  Edward  H.  Lawyer  filled  the  places  left  vacant. 
Of  Messrs.  Broome,  Brown,  and  Smallbrook,  I  have  no  clear 
remembrance,  being,  after  1861,  only  a  visitor,  though  a 
very  interested  one,  at  the  old  home  church. 

Robert  Luther  was  for  forty-three  years  elder.  He  was  a 
mason  and  builder  with  both  bricks  and  men.  My  mind's 
photograph  of  him  shows  a  very  portly  man,  weighty  in 
both  body  and  mind.  My  awe  of  his  person  was  tempered 
by  a  knowledge  of  his  perpetual  kindness.  As  master- 
builder  of  the  edifice  on  Broad  Street,  he  ' '  wrought  with  sad 
sincerity  "  equal  to  him  who  "  groined  the  aisles  of  Christian 
Rome"  and,  like  him,  "  builded  better  than  he  knew". 
His  son,  Rev.  Robert  Maurice  Luther  is  the  well  known 
Baptist  pastor,  missionar}^  to  Burmah,  and  professor  of 
theology.  He  is  proud,  like  myself,  to  call  himself  an 
alumnus  of  the  First  Independent  Church,  and  has  cheered 
me  in  this  work  of  portraying  our  under-shepherd  who  led 
us  to  the  Bishop  of  our  souls. 

John  Yard,  Jr. ,  was  much  smaller  in  figure  and  of  quiet 
dignity.     Joseph  B.  Sheppard,  always  very  neatly  dressed, 

95 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

I  associated  with  manly  repose,  fine  language,  and  a  most 
attractive  store  on  Chestnut  street,  where  beautiful  lustrous 
Irish  linens  were  sold.  Somehow  in  my  childish  memories, 
there  are  blended  with  Mr.  Sheppard's  name  and  personality, 
memories  of  those  elegant  tea  parties,  made  elegant,  I  mean, 
by  the  sparkling  wit  and  grace  of  the  guests  who  gathered 
in  my  father's  home,  and  over  which  my  mother  presided 
with  such  ease.  I  can  truly  boast  that  our  modest  dwelling 
was  often  irradiated  by  those  we  were  able  to  attract  to  it. 
At  one  of  these  occasions,  on  April  30,  1855,  "The  Young 
Indies'  Association"  presented  their  "Directress",  at  the 
hands  of  the  pastor,  with  a  handsome  copy  of  ' '  The  Repub- 
lican Court" — a  book  which  tells  much  of  Philadelphia 
society  in  the  days  of  President  Washington,  and  of  those 
men  and  women  of  national  fame,  whom  not  a  few  of  the 
very  elderly  persons  in  our  congregation  remembered.  As 
a  little  boy,  I  always  enjo}red  the  permission  accorded  me 
of  coming  in,  after  the  best  part  of  the  supper  was  over, 
and  listening  to  the  conversation  of  the  gentlemen  and 
ladies,  who  seemed  to  me  like  so  many  princes  and  princesses, 
and  from  whose  intellectual  conversation,  I  am  sure  I  often 
profited. 

My  mother  taught  during  many  years,  a  large  Bible  class 
of  young  ladies,  which  met  in  the  Sunday  School  room  at 
the  right  of  the  pulpit,  between  that  and  the  northwest 
door.  It  afterwards  grew  so  large  that  teacher  and  pupils 
had  to  occupy  a  separate  room.  Looking  along  the  per- 
spective of  years  I  can  think  of  no  faces  more  lovely  or 
countenances  more  animated  ;  no  dresses  prettier  and  no 
hats  smarter  than  those  of  these  young  maidens  of  marriage- 
able age  or  near  it.  To  see  them  and  their  teacher  when  the 
pastor  came  around  for  his  morning  greeting  and  handshake 
with  the  "  Directress  "  was  a  sight  worthy  of  a  painter. 

96 


TRUE  YOKE-FELLOWS 

I  fear  that  my  readers  will  charge  me  with  putting  undue 
emphasis  upon  the  material  loveliness  of  what  I  saw  and  felt, 
but  then  we  were  all  taught  by  the  grand  man  to  be  happy. 
He  used  to  insist  that  God  wanted  us  to  enjoy  everything, 
and  for  the  good  reason  that  He  had  made  all  things  richly 
for  us  to  enjoy.  He  believed  in  love  and  marriage,  and  in 
happiness  as  a  thing  to  be  pursued  and  cultivated.  He 
taught  also  that  the  richest,  deepest,  most  constant  enjoy- 
ment was  most  certainly  found  in  a  holy  Christian  life,  and 
that  a  fruitful  human  career  redounded  to  God's  glory. 
The  blessings  of  the  128th  Psalm  were  often  insisted  on. 
He  said,  when  fifty  years  a  pastor  :  "I  have  married  2,329 
couples.  I  was  not  responsible  for  their  future  happiness, 
but  I  believe  and  trust  that  in  the  main  they  have  all  been 
happy.  If  they  were  not  happy  the  fault  is  their  own. 
There  is  no  reason  why  men  and  women  cannot  be  happy 
when  they  ought  to  be  ' ' . 

Concerning  preeminence  among  the  elders,  I  feel  sure 
that  none  will  charge  me  with  partiality  when  I  record  my 
impressions  that  in  physical  presence,  in  dignity  and  polish 
of  manner,  and  in  spirituality,  Aaron  H.  Burtis  led  them 
all.  He  seemed  a  veritable  re-incarnation  of  George  Wash- 
ington, though  possibly  with  more  personal  magnetism  and 
easy  familiarity  than  even  the  Father  of  his  Country  is  cred- 
ited with.  In  any  company  his  was  a  marked  form,  while 
in  the  gatherings  for  social  worship  his  words,  whether  ad- 
dressed to  the  Heavenly  Father  in  adoration  or  to  the  peo- 
ple in  exhortation,  or  in  opening  the  treasury  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, which  he  knew  so  well  how  to  do  with  point  and 
grace,  were  always  acceptable. 

Francis  Newland  was  long  the  Asaph  of  the  house  of 
God,  and  lover  not  only  of  music  but  of  all  good  things,  tol- 
erant and  charitable,  patient  with  the  silliness  of  the  young, 

7  97 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

a  noble  father  and  friend,  a  most  winsome  saint,  having 
many  lines  of  conviction  diverging  from  those  of  the  pastor, 
liberal  in  his  thinking,  yet  ever  loving  and  beloved  by  John 
Chambers.  I  may  truly  say  that  he  gave  out  stimulating 
and  purifying  influences  like  a  mountain.  I  saw  him  last 
on  earth  when  in  Boston  he  visited  his  daughter  and  the 
Shawmut  Congregational  Church,  of  which  I  was  pastor. 
I  remember  that  the  sermon  was  on  BHsha  and  the  Shunam- 
mite  woman's  son.  He  was  then  nearly  blind.  Yet,  very 
curiously,  he  had  on  his  retina  a  single  spot  still  sensitive, 
by  which,  holding  the  dial  of  his  watch  in  a  certain  posi- 
tion, he  could  read  the  time  of  day.  In  the  case  of  Messrs. 
Luther,  Burtis,  and  Newland  I  felt  that  they  were  such  good 
men  largely  because  they  had  such  good  wives. 

Of  all  the  elders,  Daniel  Steinmetz  seemed  to  me  most 
steadily  worth  hearing  in  the  prayer  and  missionary  meet- 
ing. Steinmetz  always  had  ideas.  He  was  a  Bible  student 
and  knew  how  to  present  a  thought  with  admirable  clear- 
ness and  close  practical  adaptation  to  every  day  life.  He 
was  an  intense,  ardent  patriot,  and  a  useful  man  in  both 
private  and  public  life.  He  was  one  of  that  noble  stock  of 
cultured  Pennsylvania  Germans  that  has  so  enriched  our 
national  inheritance. 

Rudolph  Schiller  Walton  was  for  many  years  my  Sunday 
School  teacher  to  whom  I  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude,  though 
when  I  grew  up  and  could  think  for  myself  and  read  the 
Bible  in  the  original  tongues  and  draw  upon  the  resources 
of  scholarship,  I  frankly  disagreed  with  him  upon  some 
questions  of  church  policy  and  the  attitude  of  Christians  to- 
ward that  critical  scholarship  which  produced  under  Luther 
and  Calvin  one  great  Reformation,  and  is  yet  to  produce, 
by  God's  blessing  and  purpose,  a  still  greater  one.  Fore- 
seeing easily  in  the  early  eighties  what  many  Presbyterian 


TRUE  YOKE-FELLOWS 

laymen  could  not  then  see,  that  before  many  years  the  sub- 
stance of  the  truth,  as  held  in  cumulative  unanimity  by 
scholars,  would  be  accepted  by  the  Presbyterian  Church  as 
it  has  been  in  these  years  1902  and  1903,  I  could  afford  to 
wait  until  we  should  see  eye  to  eye.  I  knew  him  first  as  a 
teacher  of  a  large  class  of  unusually  wriggly  and  often  badly 
behaved  boys.  They  were  such  real  boys  that  I,  with  a 
touch  of  Pharasaism,  believed  them  to  be  much  worse,  in 
every  way,  than  those  who  made  up  our  class,  which,  for  a 
time,  was  taught  by  Mr.  Charles  Painter,  a  bookbinder. 

When  Mr.  Walton  in  i860,  took  his  class  out  of  the  main 
school  room  into  the  separate  southwest  corner  room,  I 
entered  as  one  of  his  scholars. 

In  the  afternoons  we  went  through  Old  Testament  his- 
tory getting  pretty  well  through  the  period  covered  by  the 
Book  of  Kings  and  Chronicles.  To  this  hour  these  parts  of 
Holy  Scripture  are  as  vivid  to  me  as  Durer's  pictures,  be- 
cause of  Rudolph  S.  Walton's  teaching.  We  studied  the 
Bible  itself,  and  not  lesson  helps.  One  reason  to-day  why 
there  is  such  a  gulf  between  the  Sunday  School  and  the 
pulpit,  and  why  the  average  scholar  and  even  teacher  is  so 
apt  to  be  scared  at  the  "  higher  criticism" — even  if  indeed 
he  knows  what  it  is — is  because  he  is  fed,  not  on  the  Divine 
Word  itself,  but  on  those  dilutions  of  it,  and  those  plates  of 
hash  called  lesson  helps.  Instead  of  the  pure  milk  and 
meat  of  the  Gospel,  even  the  teachers  stuff  themselves  with 
pre-digested  food  and  machine-prepared  aliment  of  all  sorts. 

For  years  while  Mr.  Walton  lived,  I  often  dropped  in  at 
Wanamaker's  Grand  Depot  at  Thirteenth  and  Market  (1876- 
1896),  when  in  Philadelphia,  and  always  enjoyed  his  pleas- 
ant welcome  and  a  handshake.  He  sold  hats  for  a  living, 
but  his  calling  was  to  serve  Christ.  If  ever  a  man  loved  his 
fellow  men  and  wanted  to  do  them  good,  it  was  Rudolph  S. 

99 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Walton.  As  a  benefactor,  dispenser  of  cheer  and  sunshine, 
helper  of  all  good  causes,  and  a  citizen  of  renown,  his  name 
will  live.  He  died  in  1902,  at  the  age  of  seventy-four,  leav- 
ing his  fortune  to  help  his  fellow  men. 

Mr.  Thomas  P.  Dill  was  hard  of  hearing,  but  his  spiritual 
hearing  was  like  that  of  Samuel  or  Paul.  He  was  very 
tender  hearted,  ever  faithful  and  true,  making  every  talent 
that  he  possessed,  whether  one  or  more,  tell  to  the  glory  of 
his  Master.  He  seemed  never  to  weary  in  following  me  up, 
cheering  and  encouraging  me,  expressing  his  personal  appre- 
ciation, and  joining  also  with  me  in  sounding  the  praises  of 
11  our  pastor  "  and  the  dear  old  church.  Whether  I  went  to 
college  at  New  Brunswick,  or  came  back  from  Japan  to  live 
in  New  York,  or  preached  the  Gospel  at  Schenectady  or  in 
Boston,  "Brother  Dill",  who  was  a  commercial  traveller, 
always  sought  me  out  to  bring  sunshine  and  delightful 
chatty  news  from  the  old  bee-hive  in  Philadelphia. 

Edward  S.  Lawyer  was  a  man  of  God  and  the  loving 
servant  of  his  fellow  church  members,  and  I  recall  his  sun- 
shiny presence.  He  seemed  always  so  buoyant  in  spirit,  so 
young  in  his  feelings,  so  active  in  his  sympathies,  that  it 
was  long  before  I  could  think  of  him  as  an  "elder".  Of 
him  I  have  the  pleasantest  associations.  Besides  passing 
the  money  box  in  making  the  usual  collections  on  Sundays, 
he  was  always  active,  nimble,  and  ready  to  help  his  pastor. 
As  the  years  increased,  he  seemed  to  grow  in  divine  grace 
and  in  all  winning  human  graces. 

Of  John  C.  Hunter,  modesty  forbids  me  to  speak  at  length, 
as  he  was  my  uncle,  having  married  Miss  Sarah  Clark,  who 
in  the  thirties  had  accompanied  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Chambers  on 
their  visit  to  Ohio,  establishing  a  union  Sunday  School  at 
Mount  Pleasant,  the  first  in  the  place.  With  his  wife,  Mr. 
Hunter  became  deeply  interested  in  Chambers  Church.     A 


TRUE  YOKE-FELLOWS 

man  of  wealth  and  generous  in  his  gifts,  besides  being  very 
devout  and  of  simple  and  unaffected  piety,  he  was  a  valuable 
addition  to  the  board  of  elders  and  among  the  trustees.  The 
son  of  John  C.  Hunter,  named  after  the  senior  elder,  Aaron 
Burtis,  entered  the  Episcopal  ministry,  and  is  now,  as  he 
has  been  for  years,  the  efficient  principal  of  St.  Augustine's 
School,  at  Raleigh,  N.  C,  the  director  and  manager  of  this 
industrial  and  religious  settlement  which  is  doing  so  much 
to  elevate  the  negroes. 

Of  Fred.  J.  Buck  (one  of  that  great  family  that  came 
from  Bucksport,  Me.,  one  of  whom  I  knew  as  a  professor  of 
Sanscrit  and  another  as  the  United  States  Minister  to  Japan) 
I  have  also  pleasant  recollections,  as  of  a  f?mily  physician, 
and  of  a  friendship  extending  through  many  years,  as  well 
as  of  fraternal  participation  in  the  life  of  the  church.  He 
was  a  cultivated  gentleman  and  an  able  physician,  as  well  as 
helpful  elder. 

Of  Robert  H.  Hinckley,  Jr.,  who  I  believe  at  this  writing 
is  the  only  surviving  presbyter  of  the  college  of  elders,  I 
have  memories  going  back  to  the  time  when  we  were  both 
boys  in  the  Sunday  School,  where  he  was  noted  always  for 
his  punctuality,  activity,  and  willingness  to  serve.  Of  the 
depth  and  tenacity  of  his  friendships,  of  his  varied  abilities, 
of  his  untiring  service  as  a  practical  worker  in  the  Master's 
vineyard,  of  his  wisdom  in  council,  propriety  forbids  me  to 
speak  in  other  than  very  general  terms.  After  a  friendship 
of  fifty  years,  we  both  agree,  as  fellow  alumni  of  Chambers 
Church,  in  our  high  estimate  of  the  great  preacher. 

Other  remembered  friends  and  brethren  were  Mr.  Purdy, 
Mr.  Biles,  and  others  of  whom  I  cannot  say  my  recollection 
is  very  clear.  Many  excellent  brethren  have  come  and  gone 
since  the  time  of  my  active  connection  with  the  church,  so 
I  am  unable  to  do  them  justice.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Biles  had  a 
most  interesting  family  of  sons  and  daughters,   who  were 

IOI 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

ever  faithful  workers  in  the  church.  Most  of  them  I  had 
the  honor  of  knowing,  and  one  of  them,  Charles,  was  a 
warm  friend.  Their  daughters  still  follow  the  Master  in 
unwearying  service.  Another  friend  and  man  of  force  in 
the  prayer-meeting  was  William  Smith,  whose  sister  is  one 
of  the  good  city  missionaries  of  my  native  city.  To  this 
day,  I  remember  many  of  his  clear  and  earnest  words. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  fiftieth  anniversary  or  jubilee  of 
the  pastor,  in  1875,  the  two  great  white  columns  were  fes- 
tooned with  greenery,  and  above  the  pulpit  desk  rose  a 
great  arch  of  flowers  and  foliage  with  potted  plants  at  the 
base.  Behind  the  open  Bible  was  the  pastor,  the  veteran 
and  leader,  his  hair  a  veritable  crown  of  glory  as  he  stood 
under  the  arch,  which  was  itself  surmounted  with  a  crown 
of  fragrant  flowers.  On  the  platform  sat  in  the  historic 
chair,  (which  is  still  preserved  in  the  Chambers-Wylie 
Memorial,)  Francis  Newland,  the  senior  elder  and  on  his 
right  hand  in  order,  seven  of  the  church  officers,  and  on  his 
left  the  same  number,  making  fifteen  in  all.  The  elders 
were  Messrs.  Newland,  Hunter,  Buck,  Dill,  Lawyer,  and 
Hinckley.  The  trustees,  (not  naming  those  who  were  also 
elders)  who  served  within  my  recollection  were  George  I. 
Young,  George  F.  Nagle,  Charles  Yard,  John  M.  Snyder, 
Samuel  Campbell,  Harrison  Purdy,  James  Evans,  John  T. 
Beatty,  Henry  Myers,  Isaac  Bruce,  Joseph  T.  Biles, 
Charles  D.  Supplee,  Eliashib  Tracy,  William  S.  Williams, 
Charles  D.  Marrott,  Augustus  Somers,  George  Allen,  Ed- 
win West,  J.  B.  Johnson,  Henry  Leslie,  etc. 

In  his  semi-centennial  anniversary  sermon  Dr.  Chambers 
said  ' '  We  have  sent  out  from  our  church  between  thirty  and 
forty  young  men  who  are  in   the  minist^,  two  of  whom  are 

in  the  pulpit  with  me  this  morning A  number  of 

them  have  paid  the  debt  of  nature  and  gone  home,  after 
they  renounced  the  cross  to  have  a  crown  ".     It  was  during 

102 


TRUE  YOKE-FELLOWS 

this  memorable  week  that  under  arch  and  crown  of  greenery 
and  between  wreathed  columns,  standing  behind  the  pulpit, 
while  his  elders  and  trustees— a  noble  band  of  helpers — sat 
or  stood  on  the  platform  beneath,  that  the  last  photograph 
of  John  Chambers  was  taken. 

Happily  for  the  present  writer  and  for  future  historians  the 
Session  of  the  Church,  through  their  committee,  Francis 
Newland  and  Robert  H.  Hinckley,  Jr.,  secured  a  record  of 
the  sermon  and  "  Commemorative  Services  "  and  published 
a  neat  volume  of  one  hundred  and  three  pages,  which  issued 
from  the  Inquirer  press  and  was  presented  to  the  pastor's 
friends  as  a  keepsake. 

Dr.  Chambers'  third  wife  Matilda,  who  survived  him,  was 
the  widow  of  Dr.  Stewart,  and  a  daughter  of  Peter  Ell- 
maker.  She  had  been  reared  in  the  Episcopal  Church.  One 
of  her  sayings,  told  in  confidence  to  a  friend  who  has  told  it 
to  me,  was  that  she  admired  the  ritual  forms  of  "the 
church,  "  in  which  she  had  been  reared,  but  had  known 
many  ecclesiastical  dignitaries,  who  became  smaller  as  she 
knew  more  of  them  as  men.  It  came  rather  as  a  surprise  to 
her  that  in  a  church  where  so  little  store  was  set  on  outward 
forms,  human  character  tended  to  enlarge.  As  for  her  hus- 
band, his  true  greatness  steadily  grew  upon  her  mind  as  well 
as  affections.  It  was  through  her  influence  that  the  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Divinity  was  conferred  on  him  by  the  Jefferson 
Medical  College  of  Philadelphia.  For  a  number  of  years, 
the  most  attractive  courses  of  sermons  were  those  to  medical 
students.  Frequently  as  many  as  twelve  hundred  students, 
by  actual  count,  were  present  on  these  occasions. 

Yet  no  appraisal  of  the  value  of  the  services  rendered  by 
the  comrades  and  helpers  of  ' '  the  pastor  ' '  could  possibly  be 
complete,  without  a  warm,  hearty  and  sincere  tribute  to  the 
noble  women  of  the  First  Independent  and  the   Chambers 

103 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Presbyterian  Church.  It  is  for  me  to  make  reference  only. 
Justice  in  detail  I  cannot  do.  Without  their  zeal,  devotion 
and  tireless  consecration,  there  would  have  been  no  such 
church  as  that  which  became  the  mighty  mother  of  many 
children  in  God.  To-day  the  majority  of  them  have  ' '  fallen 
asleep  ".  A  few  still  remain  on  earth  with  us,  in  vigor  of 
body  and  mind,  some  with  the  white  light  of  Heaven's 
morning  on  their  hair.  They  are  "  only  waiting  "  the  call 
of  Him  who  has  "forgotten  to  forget"  them,  or  their  un- 
selfish service  of  love.  In  His  Name  they  toiled.  In  His 
Name  they  still  serve  by  waiting.  "  Faint,  yet  pursuing  ", 
a  handful  even  yet  follow  the  Undiscouraged  One,  in  active 
service  for  souls. 

Of  the  old  mother  church  it  could  ever  be  said  : 

"  The  Lord  giveth  the  word. 
The  women  that  publish  the  tidings  are  a  great  host." 

Does  the  reader  complain  that  this  chapter  is  already  too 
long  ?  Yet  must  I  not  omit  the  pastor's  assistant  "  at  the 
other  end" — William  Weaver.  I  cannot  tell  how  long  or 
in  how  many  edifices,  old  or  new,  he  served  as  sexton,  but 
"  I  knew  him  well  and  every  truant  knew."  He  had 
stricter  notions  on  the  subject  of  behavior  at  any  and  all 
times  than  some  of  us  boys  had,  and  his  discipline  occasion- 
ally was  according  to  seventeenth  century  spirit  and  meth- 
ods. I  cannot  say  that  we  boys  made  his  life  a  burden  or 
shortened  it  untimely,  for  he  lived  to  a  good  old  age.  Hon- 
ored be  his  name  and  green  his  memory,  for  he  believed  in 
plenty  of  light,  fresh  air,  comfort,  cleanliness  and  order — 
the  primitive  articles  of  a  sexton's  creed,  and  he  honored  his 
Master  and  the  house  of  God  by  his  faithfulness.1 

1  See  a  fuller  and  more  detailed  account  in  the  chapter  entitled 
11  Some  Sextons  I  Have  Known"  in  the  forthcoming  volume,  "Sunny 
Memories  of  Three  Pastorates  ".     Ithaca,  1903. 

104 


CHAPTER  XII. 

CHURCH  LIFE.     MINOR  PERSONALITIES. 

These  were  the  days,  also,  "  before  the  war  ",  when  expan- 
sion was  the  law  of  woman's  apparel.  The  hoopskirt  had 
reached  its  maximum  of  periphery.  Many  colors  were  min- 
gled on  the  same  dress.  The  ladies  wore  ' '  shoot- the-moon' ' 
bonnets,  with  small  sized  flower  gardens  stuffed  inside  the 
brim,  between  face  and  frame,  and  the  ribbons  necessary  for 
adornment  and  fastening  ran  into  yard  lengths.  Besides 
ribbon  on  the  top  of  the  head  gear,  there  must  be  great  bows 
on  either  side  of  the  chin.  Many  a  time  I  remember  seeing 
the  choir  singers  untie  their  bonnet  strings  when  they  would 
praise  God  with  the  voice  and  understanding  ;  or,  to  be 
more  scientific,  they  unlatched  the  hook  and  eye,  which 
really  did  the  business  of  fastening,  the  bows  being  for  orna- 
ment rather  than  utility,  reminding  one  of  Gothic  architec- 
ture made  of  timber  in  lieu  of  stone.  It  was  a  grand  thing, 
at  least  one  boy  thought,  to  go  to  a  morning  or  noon  wed- 
ding within  a  private  house,  where  at  10  a.m.  the  windows 
were  shut  tight  and  the  gas  lighted.  The  girls  were  all  in 
voluminous  circles  of  flounced  silks.  Their  bonnets  spread 
out  on  the  bed  of  the  dressing  room  were  veritable  parterres, 
with  ribbons  half  a  foot  wide  and  a  yard  long. 

Inside  the  house  of  God  the  fripperies  of  fashion  were  as 
rampant  then  as  now.  In  one  stylish  family,  albeit,  accord- 
ing to  common  rumor  of  humble  origin,  whose  pew  was  near 
ours,  but  further  to  the  east,  there  was  the  father,  who  was 
a  dandy  in  his  dress.  He  always  sat  during  the  sermon  and 
those  parts  of  the  service  not  calling  for  a  bowed  head  or  the 
grasping  of  a  hymn  book,  holding  his  ridiculous  little  cane, 
which  had  for  its  handle  a  lady's  foot  carved  in  ivory.  Her 
toes  were  always  in  his  mouth,  and  the  diligence  with  which 

105 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

he  sucked  that  cane  impressed  a  certain  boy,  who  passes 
over  further  description,  of  oiled  and  perfumed  ringlets, 
amazing  necktie  or  diamond-studded  cravat  and  other  vani- 
ties of  life.  I  never  frankly  accepted  the  statement  of  Eccle- 
siastes,  until  I  saw  this  gentleman's  cane  and  neck  gear.  It 
must  be  confessed  that  the  amount  of  time  sometimes  spent 
by  young  men  on  their  neckties,  then  often  three  or  four 
inches  wide  and  made  to  stick  out  so  that  the  ends  were  con- 
tinuous with  the  shoulders,  is  a  secret  not  to  be  told  to  the 
present  generation  lest  we  corrupt  the  youth. 

But  the  psychical  moment  to  the  small  boy  was  when  the 
very  stylish  daughter  of  the  family  aforesaid  with  her  sub- 
lunar bonnet,  her  gorgeous  mantilla,  her  mighty  collar  of 
lace  and  resplendent  brooch  sailed  up  the  aisle,  sending 
many  a  black  silk  hat  spinning  on  its  richochetting  way  be- 
fore her.  When  about  two  fathom's  distance  from  the  pew 
door,  which  stood  at  right  angles  to  the  long  aisle,  she 
would  seize  a  handful  of  the  various  concentric  steel  circles 
of  her  dress,  and  slightly  tilting  the  metal  bands  would  sail 
into  her  pew  with  as  little  collision  against  the  wooden  sides 
as  possible.  Within  a  busy  period,  of  possibly  less  than 
five  minutes,  she  was  able  to  accommodate  her  crinoline  to 
the  dimensions  allowed  and  get  her  spirit  in  tune  with  the 
sacredness  of  the  hour  and  place. 

Nevertheless  when  in  later  days,  sorrow  came  to  that  same 
daughter,  now  bereaved  and  fatherless,  she  rose  by  divine 
grace  into  a  very  transfiguration  of  character,  through 
sisterly  and  filial  devotion. 

Life  is  too  short  to  tell  of  all  the  oddities  and  curious  situ- 
ations into  which  the  hoopskirt  led  its  wearer,  and  one  must 
read  Edward  Everett  Hale's  amusing  story  of  "  The  Skele- 
ton in  the  Closet",  to  see  what  dire  mischief  these  inven- 
tions of  the  evil  one  were  capable  of  wreaking,  even  when 
discarded.     They  did  indeed  seem  to  be  indestructible. 

106 


CHURCH  LIFE 

What  glistening  starry  eyes,  what  dewy  and  rosy  cheeks, 
what  lovely  faces  dwelt  inside  of  those  bonnets  !  Even  to- 
day in  life's  dusty  pathway,  sweet  influences  like  the  breath 
of  a  May  morning  come  back  with  the  happy  memories  of 
Sabbath  days,  that  were  as  "the  bridal  of  the  earth  and 
sky",  with  the  trees  in  white  blossoms  standing  as  brides- 
maids. In  memory's  glow  the  returning  vision  of  youth 
make  what  the  Deuteronomist  calls  ' '  the  days  of  heaven 
upon  earth  " .  It  was  in  that  wonderful  training  school  on 
Broad  street,  that  so  many  lovely  maidens  were  taught  how, 
by  divine  grace,  to  be  noble  wives  and  mothers,  and  useful 
women  and  workers  for  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  and  from  which  so  many  alumni  went  forth,  young 
men  to  preach  the  good  news  of  God.  On  the  missionary 
field,  or  at  home,  in  bustling  cities,  or  in  quiet  country 
charges,  many  there  are  who  to-day  amid  monotony  and  toil, 
refresh  their  spirits  at  the  fountains  of  memory,  taking  in- 
spiration from  the  past  and  its  great  personality,  thanking 
God  and  taking  courage. 

1 '  The  traveller  owns  the  grateful  sense 
Of  sweetness  near,  he  knows  not  whence, 
And  pausing  takes  with  forehead  bare 
The  benediction  of  the  air." 

They  were  not  all  sunny  days  for  "the  pastor",  but 
rather  many  a  "dark  and  cloudy  day",  for  not  all  of  the 
seed  of  the  sower  fell  into  good  and  honest  hearts.  Too 
many  trusted  in  themselves  and  falling,  wallowed  in  the 
mire.  One  favorite  text  and  a  very  sincere  utterance  of  both 
the  Christ's  first  John  and  one  of  his  latest  disciples  so 
named,  was  this  :  "  I  have  no  greater  joy  than  to  hear  that 
my  children  walk  in  truth".  When,  on  the  contrary,  his 
quondam  church  members  dishonored  their  Lord,  then  "  the 
pastor's"  heart   was  wrung — alas,  too  often — with  anguish. 

Among  memory's  dissolving  views  is  one  of  a  young  man 

107 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

who  had  been  brought  into  the  church  and  for  a  time  gave 
promise  of  manly  piety  and  a  fruitful  Christian  career,  but, 
falling  into  habits  of  worldly  pleasure  he  seemed  to  lose  in 
girth  of  soul  as  he  became  larger  in  body.  He  once  boasted 
to  me  of  his  finely  developed  muscle,  ascribing  his  physical 
enlargement  and,  as  he  thought,  improvement  to  "good 
liquor  and  good  women,"  saying  it  without  a  blush,  and  in 
such  a  statement  horribly  abusing  the  English  language  as 
I  knew  and  felt  it.  When  the  war  broke  out  he  became 
captain  in  a  regiment  which  was  made  up  chiefly  of  Roman 
Catholic  Irish  soldiers  from  Philadelphia,  men  as  devout  in 
one  way  as  they  were  reckless  in  another.  In  leading  them 
to  the  charge  in  their  first  battle,  he  noticed  not  only  how 
their  faces  turned  pale  as  the  spirit  conquered  the  flesh,  but 
also  how  each  man  crossed  himself,  and  how,  as  he  described 
it,  the  advance  of  his  company  into  the  thick  of  the  fight 
could  be  traced  by  the  packs  of  cards  which  they  threw 
away.  They  did  not  wish  to  lose  their  lives,  but  they  rel- 
ished even  less  the  idea  of  being  found  dead  with  these  in- 
struments of  pleasure  and  of  evil  in  their  knapsacks.  The 
handsome  young  captain,  after  going  to  moral  wreck,  was 
mortally  wounded  in  battle.  When  his  body  was  brought 
home  and  laid  in  I^aurel  Hill,  I  remember  the  impressive 
final  words  of  his  saddened  and  disappointed  pastor  as  he 
committed  "  to  the  care  of  the  Resurrection  and  the  L,ife  " 
the  relics  of  a  once  noble  form  : 

"  Alas  !  there  are  wrecks  on  humanity's  sea 
More  awful  than  any  on  ocean  can  be  " . 

Yet  the  preacher's  burning  denunciations  of  sin  and  his 

praise  of  holiness  helped  us  all  to  keep  step  with  the  Infinite 

and  hold  to  the  right  path.     Whether  in  formal  discourse  or 

in  the  reading  of  a  hymn  he  lost  no  opportunity  to  make 

sinners  and  false  professors  uncomfortable  and  to  cheer  well 

doers. 

1 08 


CHURCH  LIFE 

Rev.  James  Crowell,  D.D.,  writes,  in  1902  : 
1 '  I  remember  going  in  to  hear  Rev.  Dr.  Chambers  one 
Sabbath  afternoon,  and  being  much  struck  with  a  remark 
that  he  made  while  reading  a  hymn.  It  was  characteristic 
of  the  plain,  straightforward  way  in  which  he  would  some- 
times rebuke  what  he  thought  was  wrong  among  the  people. 
He  was  reading  the  hymn 

'  My  soul,  be  on  thy  guard 
Ten  thousand  foes  arise. ' 

and  when  he  came  to  the  last  verse,  beginning, 

'  Fight  on,  my  soul,  till  death 
Shall  bring  thee  to  thy  God,' 

he  suddenly  laid  down  the  hymn-book  and  said,  "Bring 
whom  ?  Bring  that  cruel  rum-seller,  who  sells  damnation 
to  his  fellow  men  for  the  sake  of  paltry  gain  ?  Bring  that 
lazy  lounging  Christian  who  was  at  church  this  morning, 
but  is  now  taking  a  nap  in  bed,  at  home,  instead  of  being 
in  the  house  of  God  ?     No  !" 

"Dr.  Chambers  was  very  active  and  prominent  in  con- 
nection with  the  Noon -day  prayer  meeting  in  the  old  San- 
som  Street  Baptist  Church,  at  the  corner  of  Ninth  and  San- 
som.  He  attended  that  meeting  with  undeviating  punctu- 
ality, always  insisted  upon  the  exercises  beginning  exactly 
upon  the  hour,  and  upon  a  strict  adherence  to  the  rule  which 
required  prayers  and  remarks  to  be  limited  to  three 
minutes.  He  was  an  inspiration  in  that  meeting,  and  by 
his  spirit  and  his  eloquent  voice  added  much  to  its  enthu- 
siasm and  success. 

"  I  remember  when  I  was  a  little  boy  attending  school  at 
the  West  Chester  Academy,  an  announcement  was  made  at 
one  time  that  a  great  temperance  meeting  was  to  be  held  in 
Everhart's  Grove,  a  little  piece  of  woods  about  half  a  mile 

109 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

from  the  end  of  the  town.  The  meeting  was  held  on 
Saturday  afternoon,  and  going  down,  with  a  few  of  my 
schoolmates  to  attend  the  meeting,  upon  reaching  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town,  when  yet  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
distant  from  the  place  of  meeting  in  the  woods,  I  heard  Dr. 
Chambers'  clarion  voice  most  distinctly,  as  he  was  engaged 
in  speaking. 

"  He  was  for  many  years  a  leader  in  aggressive  move- 
ments in  the  temperance  cause,  and  by  his  faithfulness  in 
denouncing  those  who  were  engaged  in  the  traffic  he  did 
much  to  promote  the  interests  of  that  great  reform.  He  was 
also  exceedingly  faithful  as  a  pastor  in  looking  after  the  ab- 
sentees from  worship.  It  was  said  that  he  could  always 
mark  those  who  were  absent  from  the  House  of  God  on  the 
Sabbath,  ami  that  his  rule  was  on  Monday  to  look  them  up 
and  ascertain  the  reason  of  their  absence.  He  was  an  earn- 
est and  faithful  ami  aggressive  worker  in  the  cause  of  his 
Master,  and  by  his  eloquence  and  fervor  succeeded  in  retain- 
ing his  hold  upon  the  large  congregation  that  worshipped  in 
the  old  church  at  the  corner  ^i  Broad  and  Sansom  streets". 

1  can  ado!  to  Dr.  Crowell's  testimony  my  own  as  to  Mr. 
Chambers's  inspiring  presence  at  the  Union  prayer  meetings 
in  the  Sansom  Street  Baptist  Church  for  I  attended  many  of 
them.  Once  when  the  hymn  "Oh  tor  a  thousand  tongues 
to  sing  "  had  been  finished  he  rose  up  and  told  us  in  a  few 
burning  words  that  we  need  not  pray  for  "  a  thousand 
tongues  ",  but  that  one  tongue  was  enough,  if  each  used  his 
aright.  His  knowledge  of  the  presence  or  absence  of  his 
parishoners  was  nearly  infallible.  Once  when  a  very  useful 
lady  member  had  been  absent  dining  several  weeks  at  "  re- 
vival" meetings  in  another  church,  her  pastor  said  to  her 
of  her  absence  :  "It  was  like  pouring  melted  lead  down  my 
hack".  Mr.  Chambers  did  not  believe  in  extra  meetings, 
but  in  live  ones  all  the  time. 

no 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

The  great  Civil  War,  which  divided  the  nation  and  the 
states,  families  and  households,  struck  the  First  Independent 
Church  like  a  hurricane.  In  a  sense,  the  Scripture  was  ful- 
filled as  to  the  smiting  of  the  shepherd  and  the  scattering  of 
the  flock.  The  result  was  to  be  a  distinct  lessening  of  John 
Chambers's  influence  upon  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  at  least, 
and  his  relegation  to  a  comparatively  limited  sphere  of  influ- 
ence. One  of  his  alumni  writes:  "If  he  had  been  in 
sympathy  with  the  North  in  the  Civil  War,  I  believe  he 
would  have  attained  a  national  reputation.  As  events  turned 
out,  his  Southern  affiliations  and  sympathy  displaced  him 
somewhat  from  his  niche  of  peculiar  influence  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  relegated  him  to  a  work  of  lessening  circumfer- 
ence". The  biographer  would  gladly  pass  over  the  whole 
subject,  but  true  history  requires  that  a  just  statement  of  the 
facts  should  be  given.  Whatever  be  the  judgment,  all 
acknowledge  that  John  Chambers  acted  with  a  good  con- 
science.    Deo  Vindice. 

Despite  his  passionate  love  of  liberty  and  his  democratic 
sympathies,  he  had  imbibed  in  Baltimore  and  held  in  Penn- 
sylvania the  general  ideas  of  the  South  concerning  slavery. 
This  "  institution  "  was  considered  as  orthodoxy  itself.  It 
was  defended  from  the  pulpit  and  set  forth  as  divinely 
ordained.  Mr.  Chambers  sincerely  believed  that  the  black 
man  must  ever  be  "  a  servant  of  servants  unto  his  brethren  ". 
His  passionate  appeals  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution 
as  against  the  "higher  law",  and  his  hearty  profession  of 
admiration  for  the  law-abiding  citizen  were  all  on  the  side  of 
upholding  and  protecting  slavery  as  an  American  "  institu- 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

tion  "  to  be  sacredly  safe-guarded.  Just  before  the  war, 
when  calling  at  our  home  and  finding  the  book  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  "  lying  upon  the  sofa  and  bearing  evidences  of 
being  well  perused,  he  condemned  the  reading  of  such  a 
"  vile  "  work  in  no  measured  terms. 

By  nature  a  sincere  man  of  peace  and  in  practical  life  a 
consummate  peacemaker,  our  pastor  professed  great  abhor- 
rence of  war.  Nevertheless,  these  denunciations  of  slaugh- 
ter and  his  oft-expressed  horror  of  ' '  brethren  imbruing  their 
hands  in  each  other's  blood  ",  were  discounted  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  knew  his  bitter  denunciations  of  all  things 
British  and  monarchial,  and  remembered  his  keen  interest 
in  the  Mexican  war.  Some  hostile  critic  of  our  national  pol- 
icy with  Mexico,  on  seeing  the  Philadelphia  recruits  march- 
ing away  to  serve  under  General  Scott,  called  them  "  dough 
faces  ".  Mr.  Chambers  heard  of  this  and,  on  the  contrary, 
praising  warmly  the  bold  soldier  boys  of  i846j  said  that  "  if 
the  body  of  the  man  who  had  called  such  soldiers  '  dough 
faces  '  were  made  into  bread,  there  wouldn't  be  a  dog  in 
Philadelphia  that  would  eat  a  pound  of  it  ". 

The  slow  coming  events  cast  long  and  great  shadows 
which  rapidly  shortened  as  the  year  1861  drew  near.  The 
situation  was  critical  and  the  political  sky  was  fast  gather- 
ing blackness.  In  politics  John  Chambers  was  a  strong 
Democrat,  sympathizing  strongly  with  the  president,  James 
Buchanan,  "  Pennsylvania's  favorite  son  ",  with  whom  he 
was  personally  acquainted,  as  well  as  with  his  niece,  Har- 
riet I^ane,  of  whose  decease  I  read  in  July,  1903.  He  spent 
several  summers  with  the  president  at  Bedford  Springs,  was 
often  a  guest  at  Wheatland,  and  at  Washington  was  known 
at  the  White  House,  and  once,  at  least,  opened  the  House  of 
Representatives  with  prayer. 

It  is  certain  that  our  pastor  suffered  greatly  in  his  mind 
over  the  thought  of  a  disruption  of  the  Union.     Thanksgiv- 

112 


THE  CIVIL    WAR 

ing  day  was  the  elect  season  at  which  preachers  discussed 
political  themes,  and  Dr.  Chambers's  sermon  of  November 
24,  1859,  was  printed  in  a  pamphlet. 

I  remember  the  occasion  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  His  ren- 
dering of  the  eighth  chapter  of  Deuteronomy  was  with  such 
impressive  power  that  to  this  day  I  feel  as  if  no  other  chap- 
ter ought  to  be  read  on  similar  occasions.  He  also  read  the 
second  chapter  of  First  Timothy,  after  which  he  offered  his 
fervent  prayer.  As  I  peruse  again  the  printed  discourse  I 
can  hear  his  ringing  voice  and  see  the  superb  and  graceful 
gestures.     This  was  his  opening  sentence  : 

"I  have  announced  to  you  my  purpose  to  relieve  my 
heart  of  a  burden  that  has  long  oppressed  me.  As  an 
American  citizen,  an  American  minister  of  the  Gospel,  I 
love  this  Bible  ;  and  the  God  of  the  Bible.  My  country, 
its  constitution,  and  its  laws,  I  love.     As  a  man  of  peace  I 

have  a  heart  for  the  nation I  love  it  as  a  unit.     I 

am  ready  to  live  by  it  as  a  unit  ;  and  am  ready  to  put  the 
blood  of  my  heart  fresh  upon  its  altar  rather  than  see  it 
anything  else  than  a  unit".  He  then  went  on  to  dwell  on 
the  worth  of  the  Union  to  ourselves  and  the  world  of  man- 
kind, and  upon  the  jealousy  which  European  nations, 
especially  the  monarchies,  and  more  particularly  England, 
had  of  us.  Their  hope  of  "  triumphing  over  this  Western 
continent  was  by  triumphing  over  us  ". 

He  then  dwelt  upon  the  importance,  solemnity  and  value 
of  an  oath,  declaring  that  one  of  the  most  alarming  signs  of 
the  times  was  the  utter  indifference  to  the  value  of  an  oath. 

"  Now,  for  example,  the  Constitution  most  positively  and 
absolutely,  in  the  plainest  and  most  unmistakable  manner 
provides  that  a  fugitive  from  labor  escaping  from  one  state  to 
another  shall  be  delivered  up.  This  is  the  Constitution. 
I  am  not  to-day  touching  slavery  right  or  wrong.  I  am 
8  113 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

looking  as  a  practical  man  at  things  as  they  are."  Every 
citizen  who  winks  at  its  evasion,  "if  he  aids  or  abets  the 
fugitive  in  his  flight,  he  is  before  heaven  a  perjured  man 
and  the  waters  of  the  ocean  could  not  wash  out  the  stain  ", 

The  fugitive  slave  law  had  been  often  resisted  in  Phila- 
delphia, as  I  remember  well.  In  the  same  city,  the  first 
anti-slavery  society  had  been  formed,  and  within  its  present 
limits  the  first  ecclesiastical  protest  ever  raised  against 
slavery  was  signed  in  the  Mennonite  meeting  house  in 
Germantown,  where  in  summer  I  sometimes  worshipped. 
The  agitation  of  the  abolitionists,  and  the  burning  down  of 
Pennsylvania  Hall  were  all  matters  of  fresh  memory  to 
adult  listeners  in  1859. 

"  I  now  take  up  that  question  of  questions — can  this 
Union  be  perpetuated  ?  I  answer  '  yes  ' .  Take  the  Bible 
for  our  rule  and  guide.  Let  it  be  the  sheet  anchor  of  our 
hope.  .  .  .  No  tempest  that  crowned  heads  or  despotic 
sceptres  can  invoke  will  ever  throw  our  ship  upon  the  lee 
shore  or  put  out  the  light  of  this  American  Union  ". 

After  a 'fling,  by  the  way,  at  the  divine  right  of  kings,  "  a 
right  which  God  gave  in  his  wrath  ",  he  quoted  the  legend 
of  Franklin's  calling  for  prayer  in  the  constitutional  conven- 
tion, noted  the  incident  of  Jesus  and  the  tribute  to  Caesar, 
and  then  dwelt  on  the  necessity  of  the  adopted  citizen,  es- 
pecially, keeping  his  oath.  He  intimated  that  those  immi- 
grants who  did  not  like  our  constitution  ' '  had  better  pack 
up  and  go  home.  .  .  .  The  constitution  and  laws  of 
this  country  are  our  Caesar  and  on  us  rests  the  solemn  duty 
of  obedience  ".  He  then  passed  to  the  duties  of  husbands 
and  wives,  of  children  to  their  parents,  and  to  the  duty  of 
training  the  youth  to  speak  with  respect  of  rulers  and  laws. 
His  final  exhortation  was  to  the  sacred  obligation  to  obey 
the  constitution  and  the  laws.     He  pointed  out   the  danger 

114 


THE  CIVIL   WAR 

of  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  showing  that  the  peril  was 
great  "  unless  our  pulpits  cease  their  clamor  against  the 
constitution  and  the  laws  ".  Ministers  must  not  urge  "  the 
higher  law  (as  they  call  it)  of  instinct,  but  preach  God's  re- 
vealed word,  and  cease,  too,  from  declaring  from  the  altar 
that  it  is  better  to  put  into  a  man's  hand  a  rifle,  a  death 
weapon,  rather  than  a  mother's  Bible  ".  He  urged  that  we 
cease  the  agitation  and  abuse,  that  arrays  state  against  state, 
and  that  sectionalism  be  abandoned.  The  conclusion  was 
made  with  tremendous  effect.  "If  I  were  on  the  banks  of 
the  Potomac,  standing  by  that  vault  at  Mount  Vernon,  I 
would  say  it  over  the  sacred  dust  of  the  immortal  Washing- 
ton, the  man  that  would  labor  or  would  wish  for  the  disso- 
lution of  the  American  Union,  let  him  be  "anathema, 
maranatha  ". 

But  neither  rhetoric,  nor  eloquence,  nor  professions  of 
loyalty  to  the  constitution  could  prevent  secession,  or  that 
firing  of  the  shot  on  Sumter  which  unified  the  North.  The 
news  of  this  overt  act  of  hostility  at  once  sharply  divided  the 
congregation,  and  a  number  of  the  very  best  men  and  women 
in  the  church,  some  of  them  Mr.  Chambers's  oldest  and 
warmest  supporters,  withdrew  into  other  churches,  mostly 
Presbyterian,  or  united  themselves  with  the  Central  Con- 
gregational Church,  where  they  and  their  children  and 
grandchildren  form  a  notable  element  in  that  honored 
church.  Others,  like  Anna  Ross,  the  soldiers'  friend,  be- 
came actively  identified  with  patriotic  measures.  The  loss 
to  the  First  Independent  church  was  a  rich  gain  to  other 
churches.  Four  out  of  six  of  his  elders,  Daniel  Steinmetz, 
Joseph  B.  Sheppard,  Rudolph  S.  Walton,  and  John 
Yard,  Jr.,  among  his  ablest  laymen,  withdrew  into  Presby- 
terian churches  to  help  build  them  up  with  their  talents, 
generosity,  and  consecration,  or  initiated  new  enterprises. 

115 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Others,  though  they  did  not  take  away  their  letters  of 
membership,  never  again  or  rarely,  worshipped  in  the 
church  edifice.  Probably  the  number  thus  lost  to  the  con- 
gregation ran  into  the  hundreds,  but  the  break  was  because 
of  conscience  and  conviction. 

Nevertheless  God  was  glorified  and  Christ  honored  even 
in  farewells.  The  partings  were  in  friendship.  These  were 
not  personal  quarrels,  and  the  relations  between  man  and 
man  for  Christ's  sake  were  always  maintained.  John 
Chambers's  own  testimony  on  this  point  is  clear.  In  1875 
he  said  "We  did  not  dispute.  They  treated  me  and  they 
have  always  treated  me  with  the  greatest  respect  and  they 
were  among  our  most  useful  men  .  .  .  .  and  we  have  been 
on  the  terms  of  the  most  perfect  friendship  since  ....  We 
did  not  have  any  trouble  with  each  other— we  parted  in 
peace." 

The  most  striking  manifestation  of  the  sentiment  hostile 
to  the  pastor  was  shown  by  some  of  the  trustees,  yet  in  a 
way  not  approved  of  by  the  congregation.  There  was 
possibly  some  ground  for  the  apprehension  felt  by  the 
trustees,  as  one  of  them  told  me,  that  Southern  sympathizers 
might  get  control  of  the  property  of  the  ' '  copperhead 
church."  Therefore,  a  flagstaff  was  erected  on  the  roof  and 
the  stars  and  stripes  were  unfurled,  and  for  some  months 
waved  in  the  breeze  from  morning  till  sunset.  I  was  passing 
down  Chestnut  street  that  very  morning,  just  as  the  flag  was 
run  up  and  a  few  gentlemen  standing  on  the  tin  roof  gave 
three  cheers.  It  was  a  surprise  and  not  wholly  a  pleasant 
one  to  me.  This  procedure  hurt  Mr.  Chambers's  feelings, 
but  he  said  little  about  it.  Not  a  few  others,  including  the 
biographer,  thought  that  peculiar  kind  of  patriotism  was, 
in  its  manifestation,  entirely  unwarranted.  At  the  next  elec- 
tion, the  trustees  most  prominent  in  the  flag  pole  business 

116 


THE  CIVIL   WAR 

were  quietly  dropped.  The  excitement  about  the  "  copper- 
head church  "  died  away,  and  the  pole  was  taken  down  and 
disposed  of,  the  flag  ever  remaining  in  honor. 

On  the  other  hand  Mr.  Chambers  did  some  things  which 
his  friends  deemed  highly  unwise.  On  one  occasion,  it  is  said, 
he  paraded  publicly  with  the  Keystone  Club,  a  prominent 
political  organization,  which  had  been  influential  in  the 
nomination  of  James  Buchanan.  None  of  the  young  men 
of  his  church  who  enlisted  in  the  Union  army  received  an}' 
encouragement  from  their  pastor,  who  was  never  known  in 
his  public  prayers  to  pray  for  the  success  of  the  national 
cause  in  arms,  though  always  petitioning  the  throne  of  grace 
in  behalf  of  the  Union  of  the  States.  One  after  another 
and  sometimes  groups  of  young  patriots  together  would  put 
on  the  national  uniform,  shoulder  their  muskets  and  march 
off  to  battle,  quite  frequently  never  to  return  again.  On  one 
occasion,  being  called  on  for  public  prayer  in  the  large 
Wednesday  night  meeting,  though  but  eighteen  years  of 
age  (Mr.  Chambers  always  encouraged  his  young  men  to 
pray  publicly)  I  petitioned  the  Father  of  us  all,  as  was  my 
daily  custom  privately,  and  as  some  of  the  others  of  us  did 
occasionally  in  public,  for  the  success  of  the  Union  arms  in 
the  field,  and  the  defeat  of  the  slave-holder's  rebellion,  and 
that  "their  covenant  with  death  might  be  annulled  and  their 
agreement  with  hell  not  stand  ".  I  meant  of  course  slavery 
and  slavery  only,  but  perhaps  particular  offence  was  taken 
by  the  pastor,  because  William  Lloyd  Garrison  had  in  these 
words  characterized  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
Mr.  Chambers  was  visibly  displeased  and  afterwards  referred 
to  the  prayer  in  terms  of  rebuke. 

It  was  in  the  first  year  of  the  war,  on  Sunday,  May  5, 
that  either  a  company  or  a  regiment,  or  portion  of  one— my 
diary  says   "part  of  the  Scott    Legion  and   the   National 

117 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Guard  "  came  to  our  church  to  worship  before  going  to  the 
front.  I  do  not  know  just  how  or  why  the  invitation  was 
sent  or  accepted.  Probably  it  was  to  draw  out  the  exact 
sentiment  of  John  Chambers.  In  any  event  the  patriots 
ready  to  die  for  their  country  received  no  direct  encourage- 
ment (except  to  maintain  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the 
country),  but  rather,  as  we  all  thought,  discouragement, 
when  the  pastor  told  them  he  could  not  encourage  them  to 
go  forth  to  shed  their  brother's  blood. 

When  Robert  Lee,  with  his  Confederate  veterans,  invaded 
Pennsylvania,  and  was  statesman  as  well  as  general  enough 
to  give  battle  on  northern  soil  at  Gettysburg,  Philadelphia 
was  in  a  white  heat  of  excitement.  Captain  Griffiths,  one 
of  the  handsomest  men  in  the  congregation,  whose  pew  was 
directly  in  front  of  ours,  received  his  death  wound  in  this 
battle. 

In  June,  1863,  I  was  in  Baltimore  visiting  at  my  uncle's 
and  trying  to  recuperate  after  an  attack  of  chills  and  fever, 
resulting  from  spending  a  summer  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Delaware.  (I  am  now  thoroughly  persuaded,  by  the  way, 
of  the  efficiency  of  mosquitos  as  carriers  of  malarial  poison). 
I  had  recovered,  but  on  hearing  that  Lee's  army  had 
marched  towards  Pennsylvania,  my  native  state,  I  immedi- 
ately resolved  to  go  home  and  enlist  in  the  army.  Riding 
into  the  city  and  through  the  barricades  guarded  by  Union 
soldiers,  I  took  the  train  for  Philadelphia,  reaching  my 
house  on  late  Saturday  night.  Early  Monday  morning  I 
enlisted  in  Company  H  of  the  Merchants'  Regiment,  44th 
Pennsylvania  Militia.  Within  a  day  or  two  I  received  uni- 
form and  arms  and  was  on  my  way  to  Camp  Curtin  at  Har- 
risburg,  ready  to  march  to  the  fords  of  the  Potomac.  Be- 
fore leaving  I  called  to  see  my  former  minister,  John  Cham- 
bers, to  tell  him  what  I    was  about  to  do,  hoping  to  receive 

118 


THE  CIVIL   WAR 

his  blessing.  As  yet  Vicksburg  seemed  impregnable,  and 
apparently  Lee  was  to  march  victoriously  through  Pennsyl- 
vania. Mr.  Chambers  argued  against  the  possibility  of 
putting  down  the  rebellion,  and  descanted  upon  the  impreg- 
nability of  the  terrific  fortifications  at  Vicksburg,  which 
were  able,  as  he  thought,  to  bid  defiance  to  any  force  that 
could  be  brought  against  them. 

Our  interview  was  ended  by  the  entrance  of  his  friend  the 
Rev.  Dr.  William  Swan  Plumer,  a  handsome  man  of  mag- 
nificent bearing,  whose  white  beard  swept  his  breast  and 
whom  I  had  more  than  once  heard  preach.  He  was  a 
voluminous  and  popular  writer,  who  had  held  pastorates  in 
Richmond,  Baltimore,  and  Allegheney  City,  Pa.  From  the 
close  of  the  war  until  1880  he  was  professor  in  the  theologi- 
cal seminary  at  Columbia,  S.  C.  Before  I  had  been  a  day 
in  Camp  Curtin  at  Harrisburg,  Lee  was  driven  back  from 
Gettysburg,  and  our  war-governor  himself  in  the  camp  an- 
nounced to  us  the  fall  of  Vicksburg.  Years  afterward  in 
Ithaca,  I  wrote  ex-governor  Curtin  a  sympathizing  letter  on 
the  death  of  his  daughter,  Mrs.  William  H.  Sage,  of  our  lit- 
tle city.  He  replied  in  a  long  letter  full  of  appreciation  and 
memories  of  i86i-'65. 

No  memorial  tablet  was  ever  put  up  in  the  Chambers's 
church  to  the  memory  of  the  young  men  from  the  congre- 
gation who  gave  their  lives  to  their  country. 

It  is  perhaps  on  the  whole  better  to  dwell  lightly  upon  the 
record  of  John  Chambers  during  the  war,  partly  because  it 
is  a  blessed  thing  to  know  how  to  forget.  Even  the  battle- 
fields ' '  nature  has  long  since  healed  and  reconciled  to  her- 
self in  the  sweet  oblivion  of  flowers".  We  have  now  a 
united  country,  the  ulcer  of  slavery  is  a  thing  of  long  ago, 
and  some  things  are  seen  more  clearly.  Possibly  brethren  of 
John  Chambers  who  publicly  refused  to  shake  hands  with  him 

119 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

have  since  been  sorry.  It  is  also  quite  certain  that  in  the 
days  of  heat  and  bitterness,  Mr.  Chambers  was  held  re- 
sponsible for  some  things  which  members  of  his  famil}-,  or 
relatives,  said  or  did,  and  not  himself.  Afterwards,  when 
charged  with  holding  certain  sentiments,  or  appealed  to 
to  vindicate  his  reputatiou,  he  refused,  as  he  said  "  to  hide 
himself  behind  a  woman  ".  He  was  too  much  of  a  man 
to  say  "  women  did  it  ". 

Mrs.  Martha  Chambers,  his  second  wife,  had  died  in 
March,  i860.  During  the  war  or  most  of  it,  he  was  a 
widower.  Within  this  period,  his  daughter-in-law,  a  Vir- 
ginia lady,  the  wife  of  Duncan  Chambers,  presided  over  his 
household.  Our  pastor's  nephew,  Duncan  Chambers 
Milner  (now  pastor  at  Joliet,  111.)  a  soldier  in  the  Union 
army,  was  wounded,  and  spent  some  time  during  his  con- 
valescence in  his  uncle's  home,  afterwards  entering  upon 
the  work  of  the  United  States  Christian  Commission.  He 
bears  witness  how  his  uncle,  with  rock-like  convictions, 
strove,  in  spite  of  the  obloquy  of  enemies  and  the  coldness 
of  friends,  to  be  patriot,  pastor,  and  Christian,  bearing  all 
things,  hoping  all  things,  enduring  all  things,  in  a  trying 
time,  when  political  slander  was  busy,  going  on  with  his 
work  as  usual. 

In  all  the  .separations  and  differences  between  the  great 
pastor  and  some  members  of  his  flock,  there  was  no  personal 
bitterness  or  angry  word.  It  was  only  on  questions  of 
national  policy  that  they  differed.  Their  brotherly  regard 
remained  the  same,  and  God  was  glorified.  This  certainly 
was  true.  John  Chambers,  the  hero  quailed  not  before 
threats  of  being  hanged  at  the  lamp  post.  He  went  about 
his  duties  as  usual.  Like  most  men  whose  lives  are 
threatened,  our  pastor  died  quietly  in  his  bed. 

Rev.  Thomas  DeWitt  Talmage  came  to  Philadelphia 
during  the  war,  in  1862,  and  at  once  attrracted  much  atten- 


THE  CIVIL   WAR 

tion  and  great  crowds  to  the  church  edifice  on  Seventh 
Street  above  Brown.  I  was  one  of  the  number  who  was 
drawn  under  his  influence,  and,  from  patriotic  and  per- 
sonal reasons,  I  took  my  letter  away  from  the  First  Inde- 
pendent Church  to  unite  with  the  Second  Reformed  (Dutch) 
Church,  of  which  Dr.  Talmage  was  pastor.  I  met  him  in 
camp  when  he  was  a  chaplain  of  the  Coal  Regiment,  raised 
in  Philadelphia  during  Lee's  invasion.  No  one  could  ever 
doubt  Talmage' s  loyalty  to  the  Federal  cause.  In  the 
darkest  days  of  the  war,  when  it  seemed  as  though  the 
slave  owners'  rebellion  would  succeed  he  uttered  a  fervent 
prayer  for  the  Union,  winding  up  with  the  petition,  "  Blast 
the  Southern  Confederacy".  These  were  the  days  when 
on  each  Sunday,  one  went  to  the  house  of  God,  expecting 
to  see  a  new  widow  in  black  and  freshly  made  orphans  in 
the  congregation. 

I  saw  Mr.  Talmage  first  and  heard  him  speak  on  the  plat- 
form in  Concert  Hall,  where  also  sat  John  Chambers.  I  re- 
member how  he  sent  some  old  ladies  home  to  hunt  for  ' '  the 
sixth  chapter  of  the  book  of  Nicodemus".  Mr.  Talmage 
quickly  found  out  who  were  the  popular  preachers  of  Phila- 
delphia— Phillips  Brooks,  Herrick  Johnson,  A.  A.  Willetts, 
John  Chambers,  and  others.  He  was  so  struck  with  Dr. 
Chambers's  position  of  influence  that  he  made  investigation 
into  his  methods  and  hired  a  man  to  look  over  the  files  of 
the  Public  Ledger  to  make  a  list  of  the  subjects  on  which  he 
had  preached  in  previous  years.  All  this  was  very  interesting 
to  Mr.  Chambers  when  told  him  by  his  nephew,  to  whom 
the  facts  were  communicated  by  Mr.  Talmage  himself. 

Famous  visitors  to  the  church  and  preachers  in  the  pulpit 
of  the  First  Independent  Church  made  variety.  Some  of 
these  sermons  heard  I  can  never  forget,  such  as  that  by  the 
Rev.    Dr.   Schenck,   who  set  forth  the  example  of  Caleb, 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

''faithful  found  among  the  faithless,  faithful  only  he". 
The  Rev.  Henry  Grattan  Guinness  impressed  me  more  with 
his  fluency  than  his  ideas.  Dr.  Daniel  March,  whose  Night 
Scenes  of  the  Bible  I  read  with  delight,  and  who  replied  so 
spiritedly  to  Hepworth  Dixon's  foolish  charges,  I  met  again 
in  Boston,  after  his  tour  around  the  world  in  the  late 
eighties,  and  from  him  I  have  lately  heard  in  praise  of  his 
old  theological  friend.  Dr.  Plumer  gave  us  good  biblical 
sermons.  So  did  Dr.  Ley  burn.  Dr.  Neill,  a  Methodist,  al- 
ways pleased  and  fed  us.  Professor  W.  G.  Fisher,  ever 
popular,  and  author  of  many  well-known  tunes,  was  also  fre- 
quently seen  by  us. 

I  have  felt  free  to  mention  the  faults,  failings,  and  defects 
of  the  man  we  all  loved  so  well,  partly  because  he  himself 
instilled  early  in  us  the  love  of  absolute  truth,  and  because 
his  career  is  in  itself  a  mighty  lesson  to  all  young  men.  It 
is  a  story  that  shows  self  conquest  and  mastery  of  difficulties, 
for  John  Chambers  was  ever  rising  on  stepping  stones  of  his 
dead  self  to  higher  things.  Out  of  his  own  faults,  by  God's 
grace,  he  made  a  ladder  by  which  he  mounted  up  to  God. 
It  is  because  his  strength  was  made  perfect  in  weakness  that 
his  life  speaks  even  yet  so  powerfully.  Though  he  has  been 
dead  much  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  his  influence  is 
to-day  like  wave  on  wave  of  ever  widening  circles,  and  the 
force  of  his  life  is  reproduced  in  scores  of  other  human  lives 
in  all  parts  of  the  earth. 

Kven  in  intellectual  edification  he  ' '  builded  better  than 
he  knew".  When  the  "higher  criticism"  came,  with  its 
imaginary  terrors,  as  of  hoof,  horn,  and  teeth,  I  for  one,  felt 
able  to  tame,  manage,  and  use  it  as  a  faithful  beast  of  bur- 
den, both  for  the  history  of  Japan  and  of  Israel,  largely  be- 
cause John  Chambers  used  to  say  to  me  :  "  Will,  study  the 
Bible,  and  don't  be  afraid  of  what  you  find  there  ".     Where 


THE  CIVIL   WAR 

some  see  only  the  chestnut  burr,  I  have  found  food  and 
sweetness.  "  Out  of  the  eater  has  come  forth  meat,  and  out 
of  the  strong,  sweetness,"  largely  because  of  the  atmosphere 
which  John  Chambers  suffused  around  my  youthful  head. 

Mr.  Chambers's  fortieth  anniversary  sermon  on  May  14, 
1865,  was  published  in  a  neat  pamphlet,  with  a  sketch  of 
the  history  of  the  church.  He  was  then  in  his  sixty-eighth 
3'ear  and  in  vigorous  health.  About  eight  or  ten  of  his 
original  parishoners  out  of  the  sevei^-one  who,  in  April, 
1825,  had  voted  to  call  him  to  be  their  pastor,  still  survived. 
Despite  the  subtraction  of  removals,  dismissals  and  deaths 
the  church  rolls  showed  an  active  membership  of  twelve 
hundred.  The  church  edifice,  on  a  lot  seventy-six  by  one 
hundred  feet,  had  cost,  for  building  and  enlargement,  about 
fifty  thousand  dollars,  all  raised  by  direct  subscription. 
About  three  thousand  persons  had  been  received  into  mem- 
bership, nine-tenths  on  confession  of  faith.  Other  statistics 
are  interesting — 2,5og  funerals,  6,247  sermons,  2,400  funeral 
addresses,  3,000  addresses  on  missionar}^  temperance  and 
Sunday  School  subjects,  and  about  28,000  pastoral  calls.  In 
forty  years,  excepting  his  absence  in  Europe,  he  had  been 
out  of  the  pulpit  for  ill  health  only  three  times.  In  the  ful- 
ness of  strength  and  prosperity  the  spirit  of  this  discourse  is 
best  set  forth  as  he  expressed  it,  "  Oh,  to  grace  how  great  a 
debtor  "  and  "  Hitherto  the  Lord  hath  helped  us." 

The  salary  of  our  pastor,  at  first  very  modest,  had  been 
increased  to  $1,500,  then  to  $2,500,  and  for  a  few  later  years, 
he  received  $4,000.  It  was  about  this  time,  1865,  that  the 
gentlemen  of  the  congregation  presented  him  with  a  tea  set 
of  silver. 

Almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  John  Chambers  was  often 
approached  by  pastorless  church  committees  seeking  a  pop- 
ular and  efficient  leader  ;  but  never,  for  one  moment,  did  he 

123 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

encourage  the  thought  of  leaving  his  people  for  another 
field.  Nevertheless  the  gossips  sometimes  imagined  other- 
wise. Concerning  one  particular  instance,  which  was  the 
occasion  of  a  witty  and  very  remarkable  sermon,  my  fellow- 
alumnus,  Rev.  Dr.  Robert  Maurice  Luther,  writes  me,  un- 
der date  of  July  16,  1903  : 

"As  a  preacher,  Dr.  Chambers  was,  by  voice  and  per- 
sonal presence  most  attractive.  His  voice  was  indescribably 
rich,  full  and  sonorous.  He  was  frequently  charged  with 
taking  lessons  from  celebrated  actors.  This  he  indignantly 
and  most  emphatically  denied,  frequently  in  my  hearing. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  more  than  once  heard  an  actor  of  some 
prominence,  afterward  a  teacher  of  elocution,  assert  that  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  attending  the  First  Independent  Church, 
for  the  purpose  of  getting  hints  on  the  management  of  his 
voice,  from  Dr.  Chambers's  method, 

One  sermon,  much  criticised,  I  remember  distinctly,  to- 
day. It  must  have  been  delivered  about  the  year  1856. 
The  occasion  was  a  persistent  report,  widely  circulated, 
that  Dr.  Chambers  was  about  to  accept  a  call  to  a  more 
largely  remunerated  pastorate  in  Baltimore.  The  theme 
was  "The  Immortality  of  the  Scandal  Monger."  The 
text  was,  "  It  is  reported  among  the  heathen,  and  Gashmu 
saith  it."  Neh.,  vi,  6.  The  pastor  said  that  Gashmu  had 
never  been  heard  of  before,  and  did  not  appear  again,  yet  he 
was  immortal. 
I.  How  an  unknown  man  may  become  immortal. 

Does  any  one  of  you  say  that  the  work  of  the  IyOrd 
offers  no  compensation  in  the  way  of  personal  fame  ?  He  is 
correct  in  the  main.  Do  your  work  as  faithfully  as  you  may, 
and  the  probability  is  that  you  will  die,  and  the  world  will 
give  your  memory  not  a  second  thought.  Men  will  forget 
where  you  are  buried.     The  newspapers  will  not  stop  their 

124 


THE  CIVIL   WAR 

presses  long  enough  to  record  the  fact  of  your  death  unless 
they  are  paid  for  it.  Wicked  men  will  say,  There,  we 
told  you  so  !  That  foolish  fellow  who  made  himself,  and 
all  good  fellows  miserable  by  his  religion  is  dead  at  last.  He 
caught  a  cold  going  to  prayer-meeting,  and  he  is  gone,  reli- 
gion and  all.  The  world  will  not  greatly  concern  itself 
about  you,  or  your  memory.  But  just  invent  a  new  lie  about 
one  of  God's  saints.  It  may  be  as  improbable  as  this  one 
which  Gashmu  invented,  that  the  Jews  were  about  to  rebel, 
and  at  once  you  take  your  position  among  the  famous  men. 
Your  name  will  go  down  to  posterity,  as  one  whom  the  world 
will  not  willingly  forget.  Unborn  generations  will  read  your 
name,  and  believe  the  lie  which  you  invented. 
II.  How  should  the  Christian  man  meet  scandal? 

In  the  way  in  which  Nehemiah  met  it.  He  said  nothing 
to  refute  the  scandal.  He  kept  right  along,  doing  the  work 
of  the  Lord.  He  knew  that  any  attempt  to  answer  the 
charge  would  only  give  advantage  to  the  enemy.  If  a  dog 
barks  at  you  in  the  street,  it  is  bad  policy  to  turn  round 
and  bark  back  at  him.  The  dog  is  always  a  better  barker 
than  you  are.  If  you  lower  yourself  to  his  level,  you  must 
not  complain  if  he  beats  you  at  his  own  game.  Keep  on 
doing  the  Lord's  work.  They  sent  for  Nehemiah  to  come 
down  and  have  an  interview  with  them  at  one  of  the  villages 
of  the  plain  of  Ono,  but  he  replied  "Ono!  I  am  doing  a 
great  work  :  I  cannot  come  down."  Imitate  Nehemiah. 
You  may  not  have  the  immortality  of  Gashmu,  but  that  is 
an  immortality  of  infamy.  Better  be  remembered  by  God, 
than  by  His  enemies. 

The  effect  of  this  sermon  was  immense  and  immediate.  The 
daily  press  took  it  up,  and  made  frequent  and  pungent  com- 
ments, but  the  sharp  wit  of  the  good  preacher  had  forestalled 
all  criticism. 

There  were  many  special  sermons,   about  election  time, 

125 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

and  in  civil  crises,  which  were  equally  bright  and  witty.  It 
was  not  by  these  that  the  reputation  of  the  good  man  was 
made,  however.  None  who  heard,  can  ever  forget  his  ser- 
mons for  the  young.  As  a  rather  dull  boy  of  nine,  or  ten, 
I  listened  as  if  he  were  talking  directly  to  me.  Hearing 
once  a  pretentious  young  man,  criticising  Dr.  Chambers, 
and  saying  that  he  was  not  an  intellectual  preacher,  my 
wonder  was  what  "  intellectual  "  meant  :  and  I  was  greatly 
helped  by  my  mother,  who  told  me  that  the  young  man  did 
not  know  enough  to  be  able  to  understand  our  pastor.  After 
all  these  years,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  my  mother  was 
entirety  right.  His  sermons  for  the  culture  of  the  Christian 
Life,  I  have  never  heard  equalled.  He  anticipated  every- 
thing in  this  line  which  Drummond  afterward  wrote. 

After  fifty  years,  his  form,  his  face,  his  voice,  are  all  as 
vividly  present  as  they  were  in  my  childhood,  and  I  am  sure 
that  the  spiritual  lessons  of  his  life,  survive  just  as  strongly 
in  the  hearts  of  hundreds  of  us  boys  of  the  old  First  Inde- 
pendent Church. 

John  Chambers  was  much  more  than  a  preacher.  His 
pastoral  work,  and  his  intimate  personal  knowledge  of  each 
member  of  his  large  congregation,  were  as  remarkable  as 
his  pulpit  utterances.  Thursday  was  his  day  for  coming  to 
our  house,  and  it  seems  to  me  now,  that  he  came  every 
Thursday,  but  that  is,  of  course,  impossible,  However,  we 
children  always  expected  to  see  him  on  Thursday,  and 
usually  at  dinner.  I  well  remember  the  homelike  frankness 
with  which  he  would  express  his  appreciation  of  some  of 
the  dishes  which  my  mother,  who  was  a  notable,  and  old- 
time  housewife,  would  have  prepared  for  him.  I  remember 
even  more  distinctly  how  it  seemed  to  me  that  he  knew 
everything  that  went  on  at  our  school  and  the  events  of  our 
little  cosmos.     He  seemed  to  be  as  much  interested  in  them 

126 


THE  CIVIL    WAR 

as  we  boys  were.  He  seemed  to  know  everything  that  we 
did.  The  only  time  in  my  boyhood  that  I  went  to  Welch's 
circns,  down  Walnut  street,  I  became  disgusted  with  some 
coarse  jokes  of  the  clown,  and  went  out  before  the  per- 
formance was  over.  I  ran  down  the  stairway  from  the  dress 
circle,  out  of  the  door,  and  plump  into  the  arms  of  Dr. 
Chambers  !  Did  he  scold  me  ?  Not  much.  He  simply 
said  in  that  voice  of  his,  the  tones  of  which  were  like  an 
organ,  "  My  boy  !  You  in  that  place  !  Come  now,  you  did 
not  like  it,  did  you  ?  I  should  not  think  that  you  would 
care  for  such  things.  I  should  think  your  telescope  would 
show  you  finer  sights  than  anything  you  would  see  there." 

How  did  he  know  that  I  had  a  telescope,  and  that  I  had 
made  it  myself,  and  that  I  used  to  be  up  on  the  roof  of  our 
old  home  all  night,  only  creeping  into  bed  just  in  time  to 
avoid  being  caught  ?  I  never  told  him.  I  went  no  more  to 
the  circus. 

In  our  church  life  it  was  the  same.  On  the  Sunday  on 
which  I  united  with  the  church,  there  were  seventy-two 
who  were  received  ;  yet  this  great  man  found  time  to  say  to 
the  boy  of  fifteen,  as  we  left  the  church,  that  he  would  ex- 
pect me  to  take  part,  preferably  by  engaging  in  prayer,  in 
the  Sunday  night  prayer  service,  a  fortnight  from  that  day." 


127 


CHAPTER   XV. 

LIGHT  AT  EVENING  TIME. 

In  the  seven  or  eight  decades  of  work  for  the  Master  by 
John  Chambers  and  his  alumni,  besides  those  who  have 
finished  their  work  on  earth  and  whose  names  I  do  not 
remember,  not  having  known  them,  or  known  them  but 
slightly,  there  are  others,  preachers  of  the  Gospel,  probably 
twenty  or  more,  still  in  active  career.  It  is  interesting  to 
look  down  the  list  of  those  who  are,  with  the  writer,  fellow 
alumni  of  the  First  Independent  Church,  and  to  see  also  in 
what  varied  paths  of  service  they  follow  the  Master.  In 
the  list  of  eighteen  Christian  ministers  known  to  the 
writer,  six  are  Presbyterian,  two  are  Methodists,  three 
Baptists,  two  Congregationalists,  and  three  Episcopal.  The 
first  of  those  attracted  to  the  gospel  ministry  by  the  pastor 
was  Thomas  Irvine,  who  died  about  1827  or  1828.  The 
second  was  the  Rev.  Charles  Brown,  who  united  with  the 
church  October  1,  1826,  and  was  ordained  June  30,  1833. 
Thus  began,  in  true  apostolical  succession,  a  line  of  pro- 
phets of  the  good  word  of  God. 

It  was  one  of  the  unanswerable  proofs  of  the  genuineness 
of  John  Chambers's  Christianity,  that  he  taught  the  religion 
of  Jesus  as  something  more  than  a  set  of  opinions,  or  even 
of  convictions.  He  showed  us  all  how  to  agree  to  disagree, 
to  be  friends,  and  keep  ' '  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bonds 
of  peace",  even  when  we  could  not  see  eye  to  eye.  He 
cared  very  little  what  denomination  "  his  boys  "  entered  as 
preachers  of  the  Gospel.  What  he  rejoiced  in  was  their 
bearing  witness  to  Christ.  Intense  as  he  was,  in  his  ethical 
earnestness  and  in  the  reality  of  religion,  tenacious  of  his 
own  ideas  as  is  ivy  to  the  wall,  he  accorded  the  same  liberty 

128 


LIGHT  AT  EVENING   TIME 

of  conscience  and  action  to  others  that  he  allowed  himself. 
In  this,  our  leader  was  large  minded  as  well  as  big  hearted. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  his  real  generosity  of  mind 
and  breadth  of  theological  sympathy  were  greater  than 
those  of  many  lajnnen,  whose  mental  view  and  habits  have 
long  been  fixed.  For  an  absolutely  judicial  opinion  on  this 
subject,  I  should  trust  the  men  in  the  pulpit  rather  than 
those  in  the  pew.  If  this  view  seems  a  novelty,  Jet  us  turn 
to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Edgar  Levy,  the  venerable  pastor  of  the 
Berean  Baptist  church  of  West  Philadelphia.  Now  over 
four  score,  he  united  with  the  church  about  1835.  He  said 
at  the  semi-centennial  or  jubilee  of  May,  1875  : 

"  Dr.  Chambers  has  always  been  the  counsellor  and  friend 
of  young  men.  What  pastor  ever  had  the  power  of  draw- 
ing around  him,  to  the  same  extent,  the  young  men  of  our 
city  ?  Eternity  alone  will  disclose  the  army  of  young  men 
who  have  lighted  their  torches  at  this  altar,  and  who  have 
gone  forth  to  enlighten  and  save  a  dying  world. 

"  Many  of  these  young  men  have  entered  other  denomi- 
nations ;  but  our  pastor  never  seemed  otherwise  than  glad 
that  they  had  found  fields  of  usefulness  in  other  directions. 
His  only  concern  seemed  to  be  that  they  might  be  true  men, 
useful  men,  faithful  to  God  and  to  duty.  And  here,  I  can- 
not refrain  from  an  allusion  to  my  own  change  of  church 
relations,  as  illustrative  of  his  generosity.  When  I  felt 
called  upon  to  leave  this  home  of  my  youth  and  unite  with 
another  people  who  bear  a  different  name,  I  called  on  him 
to  tell  him  of  my  purpose.  And  while  he  could  not  accept 
of  my  views,  I  shall  never  forget  with  what  a  largeness  of 
heart  he  took  my  hand  in  both  of  his,  and  bade  me  go  and 
preach  the  everlasting  Gospel  to  perishing  men." 

Our  great  teacher  was  a  man  of  continuous  spiritual 
growth,  in  his  old  age  ripening  in  the  wisdom  that  helped 

9  I29 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

and  in  the  faith  that  makes  faithful.  Some  things  were 
seen  by  himself  more  clearly  when  God  had  given  him  the 
perspective  of  experience.  This  was  so  notable,  that  it  ex- 
cited the  surprise  of  those  who  remembered  only  the  former 
fiery  days.  He  became  less  impetuous  and  abusive  of  his 
enemies.  One  alumnus  writes,  "A  few  years  before  his 
death,  I  asked  him  (Dr.  Chambers)  why  he  had  fallen  away 
from  his  strenuous  and  frequent  utterances  in  behalf  of 
total  abstinence.  He  replied  that  experience  had  taught 
him  that  to  make  a  man  '  every  whit  whole  '  was  almost  as 
easy  as  to  save  him  from  a  single  evil  habit,  or  to  correct  a 
single  fault,  and  that  he  had  come  to  feel  that  the  utterance 
of  a  complete  gospel  was  more  necessary  than  preaching 
temperance.  I  think  that  this  showed  Mr.  Chambers  to  be 
a  less  narrow-minded  man  than  he  had  sometimes  appeared 
to  be". 

His  nephew  writes  :  ' '  After  I  graduated  at  college  in 
1866,  I  went  to  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  and  visited 
him  a  number  of  times.  I  was  not  quite  clear  about  enter- 
ing the  Presbyterian  ministry.  He  urged  me  to  do  so  and 
told  me  confidentially  the  plans  to  get  his  own  church  into 
the  Presbytery  before  his  death.  When  I  asked  him  how 
he  could  advise  me  to  subscribe  to  the  Westminster  Confes- 
sion when  he  could  not  do  it  himself,  he  said  :  "  My  son,  I 
can  swallow  some  things  now  I  could  not  forty  years  ago  "  ! 

In  a  word,  John  Chambers  saw  as  clearly  as  Whittier  : 

"  The  letter  fails  and  systems  fall, 
And  every  symbol  wanes  ; 
The  Spirit  overbrooding  all 
Eternal  Love  remains." 

With  prophetic  eye  he  perceived  also  that  "  the  individ- 
ualism of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  "  was  soon 
to  belong  to  the  past,  and  that  unity  and  cooperation  were 

130 


LIGHT  AT  EVENING   TIME 

to  prevail  over  competition  and  independency.  Yet  to  sup- 
pose John  Chambers  was  ever  a  sectarian  would  be  to  mis- 
judge him  wholly.     His  very  life  breathed  out  the  prayer  : 

"  O  Lord  and  Master  of  us  all  ! 
Whate'er  our  name  or  sign, 
We  own  thy  sway,  we  hear  thy  call, 
We  test  our  lives  by  thine." 

During  the  last  decade  of  his  life  Dr.  Chambers  withdrew 
somewhat  from  public  speaking  outside  of  his  own  pulpit. 
About  four  years  before  his  death  came  a  stroke  of  paralysis 
which  somewhat  weakened  him.  His  physician  was  the 
celebrated  specialist  and  author  who,  like  Dr.  Oliver  Wen- 
dell Holmes,  has  enriched  both  science  and  literature.  Dr. 
S.  Weir  Mitchell.  The  patient  was  particularly  touched  by 
the  tender  solicitude  of  his  Quaker  friends,  whose  meeting 
house  on  Twelfth  street  was  just  across  from  his  home.  On 
recovery  he  sent  out  to  his  host  of  enquiring  friends  a  circu- 
lar containing  his  thanks  in  print  as  follows  : 

A   CARD   FROM   THE   REV.    JOHN   CHAMBERS. 

"For  many  days  my  mind  has  been  exercised  how  I  could 
in  the  most  Christian  and  modest  way  reach  the  eye  and  ear 
of  a  very  large  number  of  friends  whose  solicitude  for  my 
restoration  to  health  and  continued  life  has  been  so  marked. 
I  have  concluded  that  a  simple  card,  sent  out  through  the 
press,  from  an  honest  heart,  would  be  acceptable  to  all. 

First,  then,  I  owe  a  debt  of  undying  gratitude  to  the  Min- 
isters of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  who  came  like  doves  to  the 
windows  of  my  tabernacle  with  the  inquiry  late  and  early  : 
'  How  is  he  ;  any  change  for  the  better  ?  ' 

Again  my  gratitude  is  due  to  a  large  number  of  God's 
Israel,  who  called  again  and  again  without  any  other  object 

131 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

than  to  know  whether  the  light  was  beginning  to  burn 
brighter  in  the  house  of  sorrow.  How  Christian-like  was 
this  ! 

Then,  again,  I  wish  to  acknowledge,  as  best  I  can,  my 
debt  of  gratitude  to  that  large  class  of  my  fellow  citizens,  be- 
ginning with  the  learned  jurist  and  reaching  down  to  the 
humblest  man  of  toil.  In  this  enumeration  I  take  more 
than  ordinary  pleasure  in  including  a  large  number  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  especially  the  members  of  the  Twelfth 
Street  Meeting.  While  memory  lasts  those  fond  inquiries 
of  old  and  young  will  not  be  forgotten.  Kind  words  never 
die.  As  to  my  own  beloved  people  I  may  say  of  them,  as 
Jesus  said  of  the  faithful  woman  :  *  They  have  done  what 
they  could'.  There  has  been  nothing  left  undone  to  re- 
lieve the  anxiety  of  a  pastor's  heart. 

The  Press,  too,  has  been  most  kind  and  generous,  for 
which  I  thank  them.  Nor  can  I  pass  unnoticed  the  eminent 
services  of  my  physician,  S.  Weir  Mitchell,  M.D.,  whose 
skill  and  devotion,  under  God,  have  brought  me  into  a  state 
of  convalescence. 

Glorious  Christianity  !  How  unlike  all  other  systems  of 
religion.  John  Chambers. 

Philadelphia,  March  28,  1871. 

On  reaching  his  seventy -sixth  year,  in  1874,  the  young 
people  of  the  congregation  planned  a  delightful  surprise,  of 
which  he  thus  told,  at  the  semi-centennial  of  his  pastorate  : 
"  They  converted  these  two  figures  '  7 — 6  '  into  gold  dollars, 
and  they  presented  me  the  '  76  '  beautifully  made  up  of  gold 
dollars,  containing  one  hundred  and  eleven  in  all." 

"The  glor}^  of  young  men  is  their  strength"  and  hope. 
It  would  hardly  be  fair  to  expect  an  old  man  of  seventy-two, 
who  had  borne  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day,  and  was  al- 
ready broken  in   health  and  by  many  sorrows,   to  feel  as 

132 


LIGHT  AT  EVENING   TIME 

hopeful  and  buoyant  concerning  things  at  the  end  of  the 
earth  as  a  young  man  not  }*et  thirty.  Yet  none  more  than 
himself  felt  humiliated  and  took  rebukes  gladly,  when  he 
realized  that  he  had  not  honored  his  Master  by  as  large  a 
measure  of  faith  as  he  ought  to  have  done. 

Late  in  1870,  just  before  leaving  for  Japan,  to  which 
country  I  had  been  invited  by  the  lord  of  Echizen,  to 
organize  the  education  of  the  lads  of  his  province  according 
to  Occidental  principles  and  in  modern  methods,1  I  called  on 
my  old  pastor  to  receive  his  blessing  and  take  farewell. 
Always  hearty  in  his  welcome  and  kindly  in  his  interest,  I  felt 
that  his  faith  was  not  as  strong  concerning  the  educational 
and  missionary  conquest  of  the  Far  East,  as  his  preaching 
and  long-continued  interest  had  led  me  to  expect.  As  with 
the  war  for  freedom  and  national  life,  so  in  the  war  for  the 
Everlasting  Kingdom,  it  seemed  to  me  he  took  a  too  local 
view  of  a  great  subject.  I  was  genuinely  surprised  that, 
instead  of  heartily  cheering  me,  he  seemed  to  discourage  me. 
He  spoke  gloomily  of  the  vast  masses  of  untouched  heathen- 
ism and  said  that  anything  I  could  do  was  only  as  a  drop  in 
the  bucket. 

Nevertheless,  by  the  grace  of  God,  I  intended  to  make 
that  drop  tell,  and  I  felt  that  what  man  could  not  do,  God 
would.  I  entered  the  Japan,  in  which  no  native  Christian 
dared  then  to  make  confession  of  his  faith,  in  which  no 
more  converts  to  Reformed  Christianity  than  could  be 
enumerated  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand  were  known,  and  in 
which  descendants  of  the  Roman  Catholics  of  the  early 
seventeenth  century  were  still  in  the  crypts,  undiscovered 
yet,  even  by  the  French  missionaries  then  on  the  soil.  At 
that  time,  1870,  feudalism  with  its  mediaeval  ideals  was  the 
rule   of  society.       A    half  dozen   government    schools   on 

1  See  Verbeck  of  Japan,  Chapter  XI. 

133 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Western  principles,  and  only  one  or  two  of  missionary 
origin,  were  in  their  infancy.  I  went  out  to  live  four  years 
in  the  East,  one  of  them  as  a  lone  exile  in  Fukui.  This  was 
the  Japan  which  Verbeck,  Brown,  and  Hepburn  by  Christian 
teaching  and  healing,  which  Satow,  Aston,  and  Chamberlin 
through  scholarship,  and  which  Kido,  Okubo,  and  Iwakura 
by  political  action  were  reconstructing,  and  where  all  the 
fascinations  and  horrors  of  the  pagan  world  were  rampant. 
No  life  insurance  company  in  America  would  then  insure 
my  life,  except  at  a  heavy  premium. 

When  I  came  back  home  in  1874,  and  in  the  still  grandly 
attended  Friday  night  meeting  spoke  to  Dr.  Chambers 
people,  I  told  them  of  Christian  churches  with  nearly  a 
thousand  members  enrolled,  of  Christian  schools  and 
hospitals,  and  of  a  new  Japan.  I  called  the  attention  of  the 
now  venerable  pastor  to  this  fresh  illustration  of  the  truth 
he  had  so  often  proclaimed,  how  much  greater  God  was  than 
our  feeble  faith,  and  how  superbly  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
was  marching  on.  After  the  benediction,  a  hearty  right 
hand  shaken  and  left  shoulder  patted  in  the  ancient  style, 
with  words  of  glowing  friendship,  made  for  my  soul  a 
picture  set  in  diamonds  of  delight — the  last  of  the  great 
man  that  has  framed  itself  in  my  memory. 


i34 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

TRANSFER  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO  THE  PRESBYTERY. 

For  forty-eight  years  the  congregation  to  which  John 
Chambers  ministered  had  formed  an  Independent  Church. 
The  time  had  now  come  when  the  same  company  of  Chris- 
tian believers,  which  had  been  the  Ninth  Presbyterian 
Church,  was  to  enter  upon  the  third  stage  of  its  history, 
and  become  the  Chambers  Presbyterian  Church. 

On  the  9th  of  May,  1825,  Mr.  Chambers  had  received  his 
call.     Amid  all  vicissitudes,  the  removing  to  a  new  neigh- 
borhood, the  building  first,  and  then  the  enlarging,  of  the 
church  edifice,  the  terrible  storm  of  the  Civil  War,  and  the 
removal  of  a  large  number  of  his  people  elsewhere,  nothing 
had  seriously   interfered  with   his  work   or   threatened  its 
stability  or  continuance,  but  in  1874  the  pastor  began  to  think 
seriously  about  the  future  of  his  flock.     The  whole  trend  of 
population  in  all  three  directions,  north,  south,  and  west  was 
away  from   Broad  and  Sansom,  while  business  was  steadily 
encroaching  upon  the  neighborhood  once  wholly  occupied  by 
homes.     John  Chambers  had  overstepped  the  limits  of  three 
score  years  and   ten.     A  stroke   of  paralysis  was  nature's 
first  warning  that  the  best  days  of  his  strength  were  over. 
The  time  seemed  now  to  have  come  when   an  independent 
church,  of  the  type  which  had  for  nearly  half  a  century 
demonstrated   its  power  to  live  and  grow,    was  no  longer 
needed.     It   was   not  self  conceit,  but   dire  necessity   that 
compelled  John  Chambers  to  reflect  and  to  ask  the  question 
whether,  after  the  removal  of  his  own  personality   and  the 
snapping  by  death  of  the  ties  which  bound  three  generations 
to  him  in  love  and  loyalty,  the  church  could  exist  as  an  in- 
dependent   body.     Long     he   pondered    the     matter.     He 

i35 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

breathed  his  thoughts  at  first  to  no  one,  not  even  to  his  wife, 
but  looked  to  God  for  light.  He  waited  for  the  vision. 
While  he  was  musing,  the  fire  burned.  He  has  himself 
told  the  story  : 

1 '  For  a  whole  year  I  did  not  even  say  to  the  beloved  com- 
panion of  my  bosom  what  my  object  was,  what  I  was  think- 
ing about,  but  I  was  casting  around  to  know  what  was  to 
become  of  this  house.  I  thought  of  that  little  house  down 
at  the  eastern  end  of  Girard  street,  where  the  venerable  and 
godty  Samuel  Wylie,  D.D.,  lived  and  preached  Jesus  Christ, 
and  I  remembered  the  degradation  which  afterward  fell 
upon  it.  I  remembered  the  beautiful  church  on  Seventh 
street,  below  Arch,  where  our  honored  friend,  Dr.  Beadle, 
preached,  and  I  remembered  that  it  was  converted  into  a 
place  for  negro  minstrels.  I  recollected  the  house  where  my 
once  remarkable  and  eloquent  and  noble  friend,  Thomas  H. 
Stockton,  preached  Christ  Jesus,  and  how  it  was  desecrated 
from  the  service  of  Almighty  God  to  the  service  of  the  devil, 
and  I  said  one  morning,  as  I  sat  upon  the  summit  of  a  hill 
away  off  yonder  in  the  state  of  New  York,  just  as  the  sun 
was  going  down,  and  I  looked  out  upon  that  beautiful  coun- 
try :  '  God  helping  me,  when  I  go  home  I  will  tell  my 
brethren  the  conclusion  I  have  reached  after  a  whole  year's 
study  and  thought  and  prayer.'  That  conclusion  that  I  had 
come  to  was  that  we  would  go  into  the  Presbyterian  Church 
of  Philadelphia,  we  would  change  our  charter,  and  we  would 
put  this  church  in  such  a  chartered  position  that  we  should 
never  lose  it,  but  it  should  stand  firm  and  fixed  upon  the 
immutable  principles  of  the  I,ord  God,  firmly  consecrated  to 
the  holiness  of  the  atonement  and  the  blood  of  the  saints. 
We  did  it.  We  went  into  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Those 
men  of  God  threw  their  arms  around  us,  almost  with  shouts 
of  hallelujah,   in  the  room  just  back  of  our  house.     The 

136 


TRANSFER  TO  THE  PRESBYTERY 

Presbytery  met  us  and  welcomed  us,  and  I  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  seeing  this  church  taken  into  fellowship  with  that 
denomination  where  they  are  to-day,  and  where  I  trust  the 
church  will  ever  abide  and  prosper  under  God's  blessing.  I 
say  devoutly  that  we  did  not  lose  our  membership  by  the 
change.  I  believe  there  were  two  communicants  who  took 
some  offense.  One  of  them,  poor  fellow,  has  gone  to 
Heaven,  I  believe,  but  there  were  but  those  two  who  left  us, 
and  I  am  as  certain  as  I  can  be  that  if  that  dear  brother  had 
lived,  they  would  have,  both  husband  and  wife,  been  with 
us  now  ". 

It  is  very  certain  that  the  step  was  a  wise  one.  It  is  still 
more  certain  that  had  such  a  transfer  taken  place  before,  or 
during  the  war,  there  would  have  been  a  much  larger  pro- 
cession of  members  into  the  Congregational  Church,  where- 
in scores  of  "  Chamberites  "  could  from  the  opening  of  the 
war  be  counted.  Deeply  indoctrinated  in  primitive  and 
apostolic  ideas,  they  who  remained  with  the  pastor  until 
1874  would,  if  the  change  had  been  made  twenty  years 
earlier,  have  gone  like  those  who  in  1861  went  out  from  the 
First  Independent  Church,  largely  because  of  their  ideas  as 
to  Union  and  secession,  and  entered  the  Central  Congrega- 
tional Church. 

The  Presbytery  "dealt  very  lenientty  ",  as  a  Doctor  of 
Divinity  told  me  in  1903,  "  with  the  old  '  War  Horse  '  ". 

Dr.  Herrick  Johnson  tells  us  that  when,  at  the  Presby- 
tery's invitation,  John  Chambers  gave  his  reminiscences  of 
fifty  years'  service  for  God  in  Philadelphia,  the  address  was 
a  revelation  and  inspiration  and  a  benediction.  We  insert 
here  his  letter  to  Dr.  Chambers's  nephew  : 

1070  North  Halsted  Street,      ) 
Chicago,  Jan.  1st,  1903.  ) 
Dear  Dr.  Milner  : 

My  personal  knowledge  of  the  Rev.  John  Chambers  is 
limited  to  the  later  years  of  his   life.     During   my    Phila. 

i37 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

pastorate,  he  held  a  unique  and  conspicuous  place  in  the 
city,  as  pastor  of  an  independent  Presbyterian  Church, 
Presbyterian  in  its  form  of  Government,  yet  independent  of 
ecclesiastical  authority. 

He  grew  some  great  men  in  that  period.  He  was  the 
sturdy  champion  of  some  great  causes.  His  intense  and 
stalwart  contention  for  civic  and  social  righteousness  could 
always  be  counted  on.  The  rush  and  force  and  downright 
abandon  with  which  he  flung  himself  against  every  form  of 
evil  made  him  a  leader  of  men  and  a  winner  of  victories. 

He  was  as  bold  as  a  lion,  and  had  the  heart  of  a  child. 
His  emotions  were  not  born  blind,  and  therefore,  while  in- 
tense, were  under  curb  and  bit.  His  preaching  was  often 
"  the  quiescence  of  turbulence  ".  He  himself  might  well 
be  characterized  "  a  phlegmatic  fanatic  ".  His  talk  before 
our  ministers'  meeting  one  day,  after  he  had  returned  to  the 
Presbyterian  fold,  and  when  he  had  been  invited  to  give  us 
some  reminiscences  of  his  fifty  years  service  for  God  in 
Philadelphia,  was  a  revelation,  an  inspiration  and  a  bene- 
diction. We  felt  there  was  but  one  John  Chambers,  whom 
God  had  sent  into  this  world,    marked  '  not  transferable' 

and  '  good  for  this  trip  only  '  ". 

Herrick  Johnson. 

It  was  soon  after  this  event,  that  he  received  the  title  of 
Doctor  of  Divinity,  and  henceforth  we  called  him  "  Doctor 
Chambers' ' . 

A  Congregational  minister,  one  of  the  alumni  of  John 
Chambers  Independent  Church  writes  : 

1 '  I  think  he  must  have  been  pained  when  he  turned  his 
church  over  to  the  Presbyterians.  Yet  here  was  practical 
wisdom.  At  his  death  there  was  no  longer  room  for  an  in- 
dependent church  in  Philadelphia  of  the  type  of  the  church 
which  he  had  founded.     He  did  not  lack  practical  wisdom." 

138 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE  SEMI-CENTENNIAL  AND  FAREWELL. 

When,  like  Ruth  leaving  her  native  land  to  dwell  with 
Naomi— mother  in  love,  as  well  as  in  law— John  Chambers 
plighted  his  troth  to  the  church  that  became  orphan  for  his 
sake  ;  he  made  Ruth's  words  his  own,  and  in  his  heart  said 
to  his  people  :  "  The  Lord  do  so  to  me  and  more  also,  if 
aught  but  death  part  thee  and  me." 

For  fifty  years  his  one  congregation  was  his  first  and  only 
love.  Deaf  to  all  calls— and  they  were  many— his  one  an- 
swer to  his  people  was  Ruth's  to  Naomi,  and  to  those  seek- 
ing him,  the  Shunammite's,  "I  dwell  among  mine  own  peo- 
ple." "  How  often  have  I  heard  him  say,"  said  Dr.  Levy 
in  1875,  "  that  though  you  could  give  him  only  a  crust  of 
bread  and  a  cup  of  cold  water,  he  would  continue  to  be  your 
pastor."  Love  begets  love,  and  "unfailing  confidence, 
tender  sympathy  and  ardent  love  .  .  .  made  this  union 
enduring  and  fruitful  of  everything  sweet  and  precious  ". 

It  was  in  the  year  1875  that,  after  long  preparation,  the 
pastor's  semi-centennial  anniversary  was  celebrated.  We 
here  reproduce  the  programme  as  printed  : 

1825  l875 

COMMEMORATIVE  SERVICES 

ON  THE 

SEMI-CENTENNIAL     ANNIVERSARY 

OF  PASTORATE  OF 

REV.  JOHN  CHAMBERS,  D.D. 

OVER  ONE  CONGREGATION 
MAY  9TH  TO  I4?H,  1875 

Sabbath  Day,  May  9th,  10^  A.M.— Anniversary  Sermon— Rev.  John 
Chambers,  D.D. 

139 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Service  4  P.M.,  Sermon,  Rev.  T.  J.  Sheppard,  D.D. 
Service  7^  P.M.,  Sermon,  Rev.  Wm.  Blackwood,  D.D. 

Monday  Evening,  May  10th,  Services  7^. — Reminiscences  of  Early 
Days — Short  addresses  by  Rev.  Edgar  L,evy,  D.D.,  Rev.  Joseph 
Baker,  Rev.  John  Bliss,  Rev.  Thomas  J.  Brown,  and  Rev.  R.  G. 
S.  McNeille,  who  were  formerly  members  of  the  church. 

Tuesday  Evening,  May  nth,  1875. — Sabbath  School  Jubilee.  Half 
past  seven  o'clock — Singing  and  Addresses.  Half  past  eight 
o'clock — Refreshments  for  Scholars  of  Sabbath  School. 

Wednesday  Evening,  May  12th  at  7  o'clock.  Social  Re-union  with  a 
Festival,  for  Members  of  the  Church  and  Congregation,  at  Horti- 
cultural Hall. 

Thursday  Evening,  May  13th,  7><  o'clock.  General  Praise  and 
Thanksgiving  meeting — participated  in  by  Ministers  of  different 
denominations. 

Friday  Evening,  May  14th,  8  o'clock.  The  Congregational  Prayer 
Meeting,  in  the  body  of  the  church. 

In  a  sermon  marked  by  the  usual  graces  of  delivery,  Dr. 
Chambers,  as  he  was  then,  recounted  in  a  touching  manner 
the  wonderful  goodness  of  God.  enjoyed  during  a  half  cen- 
tury. He  was  surrounded  by  his  church  officers  and  con- 
gregation and  his  young  alumni  in  the  ministry.  His  old 
friend,  Rev.  Dr.  T.  J.  Sheppard,  with  singular  grace  and 
power,  preached  from  the  fitting  text :  ' '  He  shall  be  like  a 
tree  planted  by  the  rivers  of  water  that  bringeth  forth  his 
fruit  in  his  season  ;  his  leaf  also  shall  not  wither  ".  Mon- 
day evening  was  devoted  to  epistolary  communications  or 
addresses  by  pastors  who  had  formerly  been  members  of  the 
church,  such  as  the  Rev.  Charles  Brown,  Rev.  Dr.  Levy, 
Rev.  Joseph  J.  Baker,  Rev.  William  J.  Paxson,  Rev.  John 
C.  Bliss,  Rev.  S.  P.  Kelley,  and  Rev.  R.  G.  S.  Mc- 
Neille. Tuesday  evening  was  for  the  participation  of  the 
Sunday  School  children  in  the  jubilee  service.  On  Wednes- 
day evening  the  social  reunion  at  Horticultural  Hall  took 
place,  when  besides  the  singing,  led  by   Prof.  William  G. 

140 


THE  SEMI-CENTENNIAL  AND  FAREWELL 

Fisher,  and  appropriate  words  from  Rev.  Dr.  Eva  and  Rev. 
William  R.  Stockton,  Francis  Newland,  the  life-long  friend 
and  elder  of  the  church,  presented  in  the  name  of  the  people 
a  golden  tribute  in  the  form  of  one  thousand  dollars.  One 
of  his  young  men,  John  Wanamaker,  on  the  eve  of  his  de- 
parture for  Europe,  had  the  day  before  sent  his  pastor  a  five 
hundred  dollar  bill  on  the  United  States  Treasury.  The 
audience,  numbering  a  thousand,  after  promenading  and 
shaking  hands  with  their  beloved  minister,  partook  of  re- 
freshments, each  lady  receiving  a  handsome  memorial 
bouquet.  On  Thursday  evening  there  was  another  feast  of. 
reason  and  flow  of  soul  in  the  greetings  by  pastors  of  neigh- 
boring churches.  Rev.  George  Dana  Boardman  was  in  the 
chair,  and  Rev.  Dr.  Breed,  Rev.  Dr.  Newton,  Dr.  Hatfield, 
and  William  R.  Stockton  showed  by  word  and  look  their 
love  and  fellowship.  Dr.  Breed,  in  the  course  of  his  ad- 
dress, read  the  following  original  lines  : 

A  stranger  boy  from  Erin  came — 
He  made  our  land  his  chosen  home. 
He  heard  the  Master's  gracious  call, 
He  seized  the  banner,  climbed  the  wall, 
He  blew  the  trumpet,  drew  the  sword, 
He  fired  the  shot,  he  preached  the  word 
By  grace  divine,  thro'  toils  and  tears, 
With  ardent  hopes,  defying  fears, 
In  holy  scorn  of  scoffs  and  jeers 
He's  held  the  fort  for  fifty  years  ! 
And  if  the  God  whom  we  adore, 
But  grant  what  thousand  hearts  implore, 
He'll  hold  it  yet  for  many  more  ! 
Amen  and  amen  ! 
The  time  honored    Friday  evening  prayer  meeting  was 
held  this  week  on  May  14  in  the  upper  auditorium  and  Rev. 

141 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Dr.  Plumer  of  Columbia,  S.  C,  and  Rev.  Charles  Brown  of 
Philadelphia  made  addresses. 

It  was  at  the  "  golden  jubilee",  as  we  have  shown,  that 
Dr.  Chambers  having  on  other  occasions  recounted  the  gifts 
of  his  people  to  their  pastor— the  furnishing  of  his  house, 
the  table  set  of  silver,  the  expense  money  for  a  trip  to 
Europe,  the  carpeting  of  his  house,  study  and  parlors  by  the 
ladies,  the  young  people's  birthday  offering  of  $ni  in  gold 
pieces  was  treated  to  a  fresh  surprise,  the  "  golden  token  " 
— one  thousand  dollars.  In  the  grand  old  pastor's  speech 
in  response  to  his  unexpected  golden  shower,  he  made  it 
clear  "what  radiance  it  throws  around  this  old  man's 
evening  of  life  ". 

Entering  upon  his  seventy-eighth  year,  Dr.  Chambers  still 
kept  up  his  abundant  labors,  though  it  was  manifest,  espe- 
cially after  the  funerals  of  old  and  beloved  parishoners  and 
the  great  drain  on  his  sympathies,  that  his  powers  were  fail- 
ing fast.  In  the  month  of  August,  1875,  he  had  an  attack 
of  paralysis  of  the  bladder,  which  induced  severe  inflamma- 
tion of  the  kidneys,  resulting  in  blood  poisoning,  from  which 
he  died  in  his  home,  at  Girard  and  Twelfth  streets,  after  an 
illness  of  several  weeks,  at  11. 15  p.  m.,  September  22,  1875. 
It  was  on  Communion  Sunday,  the  last  of  the  month,  that 
asleep  in  God  his  mortal  remains  awaited  their  burial.  His 
body  was  brought  to  the  church,  and  thence  from  the  spot 
where  he  had,  a  few  weeks  before,  celebrated  his  golden  an- 
niversary. The  last  words  uttered  by  him  and  set  to  music 
were  sung  by  the  quartet  as  the  remains  of  John  Chambers 
were  taken  from  the  church  : 

"  Farewell,  farewell,  farewell, 
We  meet  no  more  on  this  side  of  Heaven. 
Our  parting  scene  is  o'er, 
Our  last  fond  look  is  given. 
Farewell,  farewell,  farewell." 
142 


THE  SEMI-CENTENNIAL  AND  FAREWELL 

I  have  copied  these  words  as  kindly  contributed  by  one  of 
the  original  quartet,  Mr.  A.  Gunning. 

Dr.  Chambers  died  September  22,  1875,  four  months  after 
his  fiftieth  anniversary.  His  successors  in  the  pastorate 
have  been  Rev.  Henry  C.  Westwood,  D.D.,  1876-1878  ; 
Rev.  J.  M.  B.  Otts,  D.D.,  i879~'83  ;  Rev.  Thomas  A.  Hoyt, 
D.D.,  1 884-1 902.  On  this  very  day,  June  30,  as  I  finish  re- 
vision of  the  manuscript  to  hand  to  the  printer,  July  1st, 
1903,  I  read  of  his  decease  yesterday. 

The  executor  of  the  estate  of  John  Chambers,  Robert  H. 
Hinckley,  Jr.,  attended  to  the  settlement  of  the  earthly 
affairs  of  his  teacher  and  friend,  including  the  distribution 
among  his  grandchildren  of  the  pieces  in  the  set  of  silver 
presented  by  the  congregation  in   1865. 

In  the  central  part  of  Laurel  Hill  Cemetery,  in  a  small  lot 
just  off  the  main  driveway,  with  four  granite  posts  to  mark 
the  corners,  is  the  very  modest  monument  made  of  three 
blocks  of  granite,  set  one  upon  another,  the  whole  indicative 
of  solidity,  strength  and  symmetry.  The  top  piece  is  unin- 
scribed.     On  the  center  piece  one  reads  : 

REV.  JOHN  CHAMBERS 

"FOR  FIFTY  YEARS  PASTOR  OF  CHAMBERS  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH, 

Dec.  19,  1797.  Sept.  22nd,  1875." 

(On  the  ground  block  is  inscribed,) 

' '  They  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  shall  shine  as  the  stars  for- 
ever and  ever." 

(On  the  other  side,  on  same  block  with  the  name  is  :) 

"  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life." 

"MATILDA  P.  CHAMBERS 

Wife  of  Rev.  John  Chambers 

Died  March  4,  1877." 


143 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  MOTHER. 

John  Chambers  used  to  boast  of  his  three  big  W's — Wal- 
ton, Wanamaker,  and  Whitaker.  The  two  first-named  are 
known  to  most  of  my  readers.  The  third,  who  made  a  vow  to 
give  to  the  Lord  all  he  had  or  made  over  the  amount  of 
sixty  thousand  dollars,  was  a  generous  helper  of  the  pastor. 

The  first  great  offshoot  from  the  mother  church  on  Broad 
Street  is  the  Bethany  Presbyterian  Church,  in  which  Messrs. 
Wanamaker  and  Walton,  were  generously  interested  and 
unceasingly  active. 

In  1875  Mr.  Chambers  said,  "  Connected  with  our  move- 
ments as  a  church,  no  single  event  in  our  history  exceeds 
in  point  of  grandeur  or  importance  Bethany  mission.  .  .  , 
A  very  few,  some  thirty,  of  the  young  workers  of  our 
church  headed  by  that  remarkable  young  man,  John  Wana- 
maker, left  us  and  after  there  being  a  selection  made  in  the 
southwestern  part  of  the  city,  they  started  a  Sabbath  School 
in  the  working  room  of  a  little  Irish  shoemaker,  with  some 
ten  little  ragged  children  to  begin  with,  and  in  the  course 
of  a  very  few  weeks  they  had  to  take  all  the  room  in  the 
little  Irishman's  home,  pretty  much,  and  then  they  had  not 
enough.  A  tent  was  erected  that  would  contain  some  four 
or  five  hundred,  and  then  the  congregation  agreed  that  there 
should  be  a  house  put  up,  and  a  one-story  house  was  put 
up  that  would  contain  some  five  or  six  hundred  ". 

It  seems  almost  like  a  fairy  tale  when  one  contrasts  the 
condition  of  things  in  the  Bethany  neighborhood,  as  I  first 
saw  it  in  1855,  and  as  it  is  now.  After  our  family  had 
moved  from  Girard  Avenue  to  the  house  on  20th  street  four 
doors  below  Chestnut  on  the  east  side,  my  mother  took  me 

144 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE    MOTHER 

one  day  to  enter  the  public  school  situated,  I  believe,  at 
22nd  and  Shippen.  Just  as  we  turned  the  corner  at  Twen- 
tieth and  Pine  Street,  I  looked  across  to  the  southwest. 
For  many  hundred  of  acres,  there  was  an  expanse  of  vacant 
lots  occupied  here  and  there  with  squatters'  cabins,  goose 
pastures  and  roaming  cows,  the  streets  not  being  j^et  "cut 
through  ".  Still  in  the  days  of  the  volunteer  fire  company, 
with  all  its  lawlessness  and  also  of  abundance,  yes,  supera- 
bundance, of  liquor  saloons,  it  seemed  one  of  the  least 
promising  portions  of  the  city.  Now,  it  is  densely  built  up 
with  elegant  homes  and  is  the  center  of  wealth,  comfort, 
and  culture. 

I  remember  well,  too,  when  the  first  band  of  workers  went 
out  from  the  mother  church  and  on  the  14th  of  February, 
1858,  in  two  second  story  rooms  of  the  house  at  No.  2135 
South  Street,  began  a  Sunday  School,  with  twenty-seven 
scholars  and  two  teachers,  the  seating  capacity  being  eked 
out,  if  I  remember  rightly,  with  rough  scantling  brought  up 
out  of  the  cellar  and  laid  upon  bricks.  Long  before  hot 
weather,  the  rooms,  halls,  and  stairway  were  crowded,  so  on 
the  1 8th  of  July  a  tent  was  set  up  on  the  North  side  of 
South  street.  After  a  summer  under  canvas,  the  corner 
stone  for  a  chapel  was  laid  on  the  18th  of  October,  Dr. 
Chambers  with  his  brethren,  Leyburn,  Brainerd,  and 
McLeod  making  addresses.  The  chapel  which  measured 
40  by  60  feet  was  dedicated  on  January  27th,  1859,  and  on 
January  4th,  1862,  Rev.  Augustus  Blauvelt  began  his  labors 
as  city  missionary,  becoming  after  a  year  a  missionary  to 
China.  I  remember  him  as  preaching  a  remarkable  sermon 
on  the  kingdom  of  Satan.     He  died  in  April,  1900. 

The  growth  of  Bethany  was  continuous  and  surprising.     I 
remember  how  those  most  interested  conversed  with  each 
other  about  the  name  of  the  child  now  fully  born  and  ready 
10  145 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

for  its  clothing  and  christening.  The  walks  and  talks  and 
experiences  by  the  way,  in  going  from  the  old  home  to  the 
new  enterprise,  called  np  the  words  of  the  Scripture  :  "  He 
led  them  out  as  far  as  Bethany  and  lifted  up  his  hands  and 
blessed  them  ".     So  the  name  of  Bethany  was  decided  upon. 

On  September  25,  1865,  the  enterprise  was  organized  into 
a  Presbyterian  Church  under  the  care  of  the  Presbytery  of 
Philadelphia,  Old  School.  The  lot  at  the  southeast  corner 
of  Twenty-second  and  Bainbridge  streets,  112  by  138^  feet, 
was  purchased,  and  on  February  13,  1870,  the  new  and  com- 
modious edifice  was  dedicated. 

To-day,  with  its  large  eldership,  boards  of  trustees  and 
deacons,  its  doormen  and  tithemen,  its  leaders  of  Christian 
bands,  its  college  established  in  1881— the  first  of  its  kind  in 
Philadelphia,  and  of  which  for  many  years  its  vice-president, 
Rudolph  S.  Walton,  was  chief  friend  and  benefactor, 
Bethany  is  a  center  of  blessing  to  thousands.  Of  the  Dea- 
conesses' Home,  the  Men's  Friendly  Inn,  and  other  details  of 
the  great  work  we  have  not  space  to  speak.  At  his  decease 
in  November,  1900,  Mr.  Walton  left  about  $200,000  for  the 
erection  of  a  new  college  building. 

No  sooner  was  Bethany  Church  grown  to  adult  life  than 
it  began  to  send  forth  colonies.  The  Bethany  Mission  was 
its  first  namesake.  By  this  time,  in  the  twentieth  century, 
the  boy  that  I  once  knew  as  no  richer  or  poorer  than  the 
average,  had  become  one  of  Philadelphia's  princely  mer- 
chants, with  hand  ever  open  for  gifts  and  help.  A  lot  at 
the  northeast  corner  of  Twenty-eighth  and  Morris  streets, 
measuring  114  by  136  feet,  was  secured.  It  was  far  away 
from  any  human  dwelling,  but  it  was  in  the  direction  of 
growth.  The  skilled  fishers  of  men  let  down  the  net  just 
where  they  knew  the  fishes  would  be  in  shoals — a  method 
and  policy  following  out  that  of  their  great  teacher,  Jesus 

146 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  MOTHER 

Christ,  and  of  their  earthly  exemplar,  John  Chambers.  On 
this  lot  Mr.  John  Wanamaker  and  Mrs.  Wanamaker  (at 
whose  wedding  I  remember  being  present,  as  a  boy),  in 
gratitude  to  God  for  the  wonderful  preservation  from  fire  of 
the  great  Wanamaker  store,  have  erected,  since  the  streets 
were  opened,  a  superb  edifice  with  all  modern  equipments 
and  furnishing.  This,  at  the  present  time,  serves  as  a 
church  and  Sunday  School  and  for  social  gatherings.  The 
main  church  edifice  is  to  be  erected  later  on  the  southern 
portion  of  the  still  unoccupied  lot. 

How  gratifying  this  was  to  the  Presbytery  of  Philadelphia 
is  seen  in  the  records  given  below.  From  the  minutes  of 
October  30,  1901,  we  make  extracts  of  the 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  TRUSTEES  OF  THE  PRESBYTERY  OF 
PHILADELPHIA. 

Mr.  Robert  H.  Hinckley  presented  the  following  preamble 
and  resolution  : 

"  As  a  member  of  the  special  committee  who  reported  June 
1,  1899  (see  folio  228)  on  the  proposed  location  of  a  church 
at  28th  and  Morris  Streets,  I  desire  to  report  that  in  accord- 
ance with  the  permission  therein  granted,  Mr.  John  Wana- 
maker has  erected  and  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  the  late 
Rev.  John  Chambers  a  church  building  on  the  North  East 
corner  of  28th  and  Morris  Sts.,  which  affords  ample  space 
for  a  congregation  of  fifteen  hundred  worshippers,  also  for  a 
large  Sabbath  school  and  several  large  rooms  suitable  for 
reading  rooms  and  for  the  general  purposes  of  an  institu- 
tional church.  The  ground  and  building  cost  Mr.  Wana- 
maker over  eighty  thousand  dollars,  all  of  which  has  been 
paid  and  the  building  was  dedicated  during  the  third  week 
of  October,  free  of  debt,  as  The  John   Chambers  Memorial 

147 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Church.  I  suggest,  therefore,  that  we  recommend  to  Pres- 
bytery the  following  Resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  a  special  Committee  of  three  members  of 
this  Presbytery  be  appointed  to  wait  on  Mr.  John  Wana- 
maker  and  extend  to  him  the  thanks  and  appreciation  of 
the  Presbytery  for  his  princely  liberality  and  his  magnificent 
recognition  of  the  work  and  services  of  one  of  our  most 
devoted  ministers  who  has  long  since  been  called  to  his 
reward ' ' . 

This  was  unanimously  agreed  to  and  the  Committee 
appointed. 

In  the  above  record,  the  name  of  Robert  H.  Hinckley  is 
that  of  the  surviving  elder  of  the  Chambers  Presbyterian 
Church  and  still  an  indefatigable  worker  in  Christ's  name. 
On  Saturday  afternoon  early  in  May,  1901,  in  the  presence 
of  a  large  gathering  of  Bethany  Church  people  and  about 
five  hundred  children,  ground  was  broken  at  Twenty-eighth 
and  Morris  streets.  Besides  addresses  from  John  Wana- 
maker,  Rev.  Messrs.  Wm.  Patterson,  John  Thompson, 
George  Van  Deurs,  and  the  laymen  Edwin  Adams,  Robert 
Boyd,  and  R.  M.  Coyle,  there  were  prayer  and  singing. 

I  visited  this  as  yet  unbuilt  portion  of  the  city  on  Friday, 
Jan.  23rd,  1903,  which,  besides  being  the  324th  anniversary 
of  the  Union  of  Utrecht,  our  great  national  precedent  for 
federal  government  and  the  date  of  the  dinner  of  the 
Holland  Society  of  Philadelphia,  was  for  me  a  veritable 
John  Chambers  day. 

Starting  from  Thirteenth  and  Filbert,  the  site  of  the  old 
Church  of  the  Vow,  and  moving  through  the  City  Hall 
buildings  and  Wanamaker's  Grand  Depot  and  big  store,  I 
came  to  Broad  and  Sansom,  where  in  1830,  towards  the  set- 
ting sun,  there  were  but  unoccupied  lots,  or  only  a  few 
scanty    buildings.       Further    down     Broad     Street,     near 

148 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  MOTHER 

Spruce,  I  passed,  having  already  studied  the  interior  of, 
the  new  and  imposing  structure,  the  Chambers-Wylie  Me- 
morial Church.  Thence  south westwardly,  I  walked  to 
Bethati}*  Presbyterian  Church  which,  when  started,  was 
amid  brickyards,  vacant  lots,  and  with  a  great  area  of  the 
open  country  stretching  to  the  southwest.  I  then  boarded 
a  Gray's  Ferry  car  and  rode  past  the  United  States  Arsenal 
and  into  a  region  where  the  streets  had  only  very  recently 
been  cut  through,  and  were  but  partially  paved  or  curbed. 
I  found  the  Church  of  the  L,ove  of  God,  the  John  Cham- 
bers Memorial  Church,  standing  alone  in  its  glory.  No 
human  dwellings  were  nearer  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile, 
though  houses  of  worship  could  be  discerned  rising  out  of 
the  fringe  of  dwellings.  But  this  pioneering,  "preparing 
in  the  desert  a  highway  for  our  God  ",  was  exactly  what 
the  First  Independent  Church  people  and  the  Bethany 
Mission  colony  of  1858,  had  done  before.  It  was  simply 
planting  the  standard  for  the  hosts  to  follow.  What  grand 
faith  to  go  ahead  of  population  and  to  be  literally  a  fore- 
runner of  the  gospel  !  Outwardly  the  edifice,  built  of  a 
combination  of  light  brick,  Scotch  granite,  and  terra  cotta, 
seemed  but  little  "like  a  church  ",  yet  only,  as  it  were,  to 
impress  upon  the  mind  the  absurdity  of  ever  calling 
an  edifice — a  thing  built  by  masons  and  carpenters — a 
11  church  ",  which  is  a  company  of  human  souls  called  to  do 
God's  will.  Yet  for  such  uses,  and  for  such  a  company,  and 
intended  to  be  helpful  to  the  education  and  training  of  the 
young  in  social  holiness  and  for  the  worship  of  God,  what 
could  be  better?  In  the  basement  was  a  gymnasium,  with 
generous  facilities  for  physical  exercise,  and  that  which  is 
next  to  godliness.  There  were  also  a  great  entertainment 
room,  a  kitchen,  tea  room,  and  apartments  for  the  janitor  and 
his  family.     Upstairs,  on  the  first  or  main  floor  was  the  great 

149 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Sunday  School  room  proper,  divisible,  by  movable  partitions 
and  curtains,  into  class  rooms  and  able  to  hold  in  unity 
about  twelve  hundred  people.  Offices,  reading  rooms, 
places  for  mothers'  meetings,  and,  oh  blessed  modern  addi- 
tion— fulfilling  at  least  one  pastor's  dreams — rooms,  where 
invalids  or  mothers  with  small  children  might  come,  see  the 
minister  but  not  be  seen  by  the  congregation,  stay  as  long 
as  they  could  and  leave,  whenever  they  wished,  through  a 
side  door  without  disturbing  any  one.  Kindergarten  rooms 
and  also  those  for  the  junior  classes  completed  this  "  modern 
instance"  of  consecrated  common  sense  expressed  in  a 
building. 

After  the  courteous  janitor  had  shown  me  about,  I  went 
up  on  the  roof,  whence  projects  many  feet  in  the  air  a  rota- 
ting star  with  electric  lights  showing  at  night,  the  red, 
white,  and  blue  in  alternation,  while  east  and  west  along 
the  ridge  pole  rises  in  large  letters,  electrically  illuminated 
at  night,  the  "  Church  of  the  Love  of  God  " — though  the 
corporate  name  of  the  completed  enterprise  is  to  be  the 
John  Chambers  Memorial  Church.  On  the  roof  also  is  a 
great  bell  cast  at  the  McChane  foundry,  in  Baltimore.  This 
is  the  gift  of  Miss  Kate  Wentz,  who,  with  her  aunt  Miss 
Cousty,  were  as  I  remember,  among  the  most  faithful 
worshippers  during  many  years  in  the  old  church.  Its 
silvery  tones  made  the  air  quiver  with  melody  first  on 
Christmas  Eve.  Facing  the  south  and  the  sunny  hours  is  a 
superb  stained-glass  window,  with  the  medallion  portrait  of 
the  great  pastor,  as  he  looked  in  his  prime,  when  his  hair 
was  just  beginning  to  turn  gray. 

Thus,  in  a  southwesterly  line,  through  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia, from  near  the  spot  where  to-day  stands  the  great 
Reading  Terminal,  has  issued  a  chain  of  sweet  influences, 
which,  like  those  of  the  Pleiades,  cannot  be  bound. 

150 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  MOTHER 

The  dedicatory  services  of  the  John  Chambers  Memorial 
Church,  erected  as  a  thanksgiving  offering  to  the  praise  and 
glory  of  God,  and  in  memory  of  the  life  and  good  works  of 
his  servant,  the  Rev.  John  Chambers,  were  held  during  the 
week  beginning  October  19,  1902,  on  entering  the  new  house 
of  the  Lord.  The  published  pamphlet,  which  is  richly 
illustrated  with  portraits  and  pictures  of  the  church  edifices, 
is  a  valuable  souvenir  of  both  old  times  and  new. 

Yet  this  is  not  all.  On  June  9,  1898,  some  of  the  Chris- 
tian workers  of  Bethany  Church  began  services  in  a  tent  in 
West  Philadelphia,  near  Baltimore  avenue  and  Fiftieth 
street,  and  out  of  that  beginning  has  grown  Saint  Paul's 
Presbyterian  Church,  which  flourishes  with  high  promise. 
Its  edifice  was  dedicated  March  24,  1901.  Here  again  the 
great  pastor  is  commemorated  by  a  superb  memorial  win- 
dow which  sheathes  the  light  and  color  that  set  forth  most 
gloriously  the  Good  Shepherd.  It  has  been  reared  to  the 
memory  of  John  Chambers  by  Mrs.  John  Hunter,  the  widow 
of  Mr.  John  C.  Hunter,  so  long  the  faithful  elder  in  the  old 
Broad  Street  Church. 

The  basement  of  Saint  Paul's  Church,  furnished  and  fitted 
up  by  the  Brotherhood  of  Andrew  and  Philip,  is  named 
Walton  Hall  and  contains  a  marble  tablet  in  memory  of 
Rudolph  S.  Walton,  which  reads  as  follows  : 

IN  LOVING  REMEMBRANCE  OF 

RUDOIvPH  S.  WALTON. 
A  wise  counsellor.     A  loving  friend.     A  just  man. 

Unto  the  life  beyond — November  10th,  1900. 

' '  For  I  know  whom  I  have  believed,  and  am  persuaded  that  He  is 
able  to  keep  that  which  I  have  committed  unto  Him  against  that  day." 

— II  Timothy,  i :  12. 

151 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Still  further  at  Rutledge,  Delaware  county,  Pa.,  is  another 
Chambers  Memorial  Church,  established  and  carried  on 
chiefly  by  young  men  and  women  who  are  alumni  of  the 
First  Independent  Church  and  of  the  Chambers  Presbyterian 
Church.  It  has  been  liberally  assisted  by  the  trustees  of 
the  Chambers- Wylie  Church  and  contains  stained  glass- 
memorial  windows  in  honor  of  the  pastor  and  also  of  the 
elders  of  the  old  Broad  Street  Church. 

In  the  handsomely  printed  and  illustrated  pamphlet,  en- 
titled "  Dedication  Souvenir  of  the  Chambers-Wylie  Memo- 
rial Presbyterian  Church",  prepared  by  Rev.  Thomas  A. 
Hoyt,  D.D.,  pastor  emeritus,  and  published  for  the  Building 
Committee  in  1901,  one  will  find  much  interesting  informa- 
tion concerning  the  two  churches  merged  into  one  and  still 
occupying  a  home  in  the  commodious  edifice  on  Broad  street, 
below  Spruce. 

After  due  conference  the  two  congregations  executed 
formal  articles  of  agreement  May  27,  1897,  an^  their  action 
was  ratified  by  the  Presbytery.  For  a  short  time  they  both 
become  one,  worshipped  in  the  edifice  of  the  Chambers 
Church,  and  when  that  was  sold  and  torn  down,  the  old 
Epiphany  Church  building  at  Fifteenth  and  Chestnut  streets 
(wherein  so  long  Dr.  Richard  Newton,  a  favorite  writer  of 
children's  books,  ministered),  then  owned  by  Mr.  John 
Wanamaker,  was  made  use  of.  From  this  temporary  abid- 
ing place  the  united  congregation  moved  into  their  new  and 
splendid  temple,  enjoying  the  first  dedicatory  services  on 
the  Sabbath  day,  December  8,  1901,  and  continuing  them 
during  the  five  succeeding  evenings. 

The  principal  dates  and  items  of  financial  interest  are  as 
follows  :  Of  the  sum  of  $412,500  received  from  the  sale  of 
the  property  at  Broad  and  Sansom  Streets,  the  sum  of 
$200,000  was  set  aside  as  a  perpetual  endowment  for  the  use 

152 


THE  CHAMBERS-WYLIE  MEMORIAL  CHURCH. 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  MOTHER 

of  the  Chambers- Wy lie  Church,  and  $60,000  were  applied 
to  extinguish  the  mortgage  debt.  The  sum  of  $6,000  was 
given  to  the  Rutledge  Presbyterian  Church. 

"On  December  26th,  1899,  the  congregation  instructed 
the  Board  of  Trustees  to  proceed  with  the  erection  of  a  new 
church  edifice,  according  to  an  estimate  submitted  by 
J.  E.  &  A.  L.  Pennock,  the  cost  of  same  to  be  $101,000 
and  in  April,  1900,  the  erection  of  the  building  was  begun. 
On  August  8th,  1900,  the  corner  stone  was  laid  and  on  the 
first  Sunday  of  December,  1901,  the  Church  building  was 
formally  dedicated,  the  Rev.  Thomas  A.  Hoyt,  D.D., 
preaching  in  the  morning,  and  Rev.  Henry  C.  Minton,  D.D., 
in  the  evening. 

The  entire  cost  of  the  church  building  was  $103,915.66. 
The  cost  of  Organ,  $10,000  ;  Cost  of  Pews,  $3,260  ;  Pulpit 
Furniture,  $600;  Stained  Glass,  $1,500;  Heating  System, 
$2,400 ;  Carpets,  $3,457. 


Within  two  years  after  preaching  the  dedication  sermon, 
the  pastor  emeritus  fell  asleep  in  God,  and  funeral  services 
were  held  in  the  new  edifice. 

The  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  Chambers- Wylie  Memorial 
Church  met  in  the  pastor's  study,  at  noon  on  the  same  day, 
and  passed  the  following  resolution  : 

"  The  Rev.  Thomas  A.  Hoyt,  D.D.,  our  Pastor  Emeritus 
and  for  seventeen  years  our  pastor,  whose  death  occurred  in 
Bryn  Mawr  on  Monday,  June  29th,  was  beloved  by  us  all 
and  by  the  church  we  represent.  He  came  to  us  in  1883  and 
by  his  untiring  devotion  to  the  interests  of  this  church  and 
his  skill  in  carrying  into  effect  the  union  of  the  two  churches 
now  one  in  this  present  organization  has  made  possible  our 
present  prosperity  and  position  of  influence." 


153 


JOHN  CHAMBERS 

Now,  during  the  pastorate  of  Rev.  E.  Trumbull  Lee,  with 
a  few  of  the  old  "  Chamberites"  and  many  new  followers 
of  the  Master  the  work  goes  on.  God  bless  and  prosper 
them  one  and  all. 


"  Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  thy  name 
give  glory,  for  thy  mercy,  and  for  thy  truth's  sake." 


i54 


Clasp,  Angel  of  the  backward  look 
And  folded  wings  of  ashen  gray, 
And  voice  of  echoes  far  away, 
The  brazen  covers  of  thy  book  ; 
The  weird  palimpsest  old  and  vast, 
Wherein  thou  hid'st  the  spectral  past ; 
Where,  closely  mingling,  pale  and  glow 
The  characters  of  joy  and  woe  ; 
The  monographs  of  outlived  years, 
Or  smile-illumed  or  dim  with  tears, 

Green  hills  of  life  that  slope  to  death, 
And  haunts  of  home,  whose  vistaed  trees 
Shade  off  to  mournful  cypresses 

With  the  white  amaranths  underneath. 

Even  while  I  look  I  can  but  heed 

The  restless  sands'  incessant  fall, 
Importunate  hours  that  hours  succeed, 
Bach  clamorous  with  its  own  sharp  need, 
And  duty  keeping  pace  with  all. 

Shut  down  and  clasp  the  heav3^  lids  ; 
I  hear  again  the  voice  that  bids 
The  dreamer  leave  his  dream  midway 
For  larger  hopes  and  graver  fears  ; 
Life  greatens  in  these  later  years 
The  century's  aloe  flowers  to-day  !  " 


i55 


INDEX. 


Actors  and  acting,  63,  124. 
Adams,  Mr.  Edwin,  147. 
Allen,  Mr.  George,  102. 
Amusements,  48-50,  127. 
Anecdotes,  16,  25,  42,  54,  no. 
Arrison,  John  Chambers,  41. 
Arrison,  Mr.  Matthew,  55,  94. 
Ayres,  Mr.  Hiram,  27. 

Bacon,  Rev.  Leonard,  37,  38. 
Baker,  Rev.  J.  J.,  140. 
Baltimore,  17,  18,  118^124. 
Barnes,  Rev.  Albert,  35,  83,  84. 
Beatty,  Mr.  J.  T.,  103. 
Bethany  Church,  6,  145,  146. 
Biles,  Mr.  J.  T.,  101,  102. 
Blauvelt,  Rev.  Augustus,  145. 
Bliss,  Rev.  Dr.  John,  78,  140. 
Boardman,    Rev.    Dr.   George   Dana, 

141. 
Breed,  Rev.  Dr.,  141. 
Briggs,  Dr.  Charles  A.,  86,  87. 
British,  17,  18. 

Broad  Street  Church,  68-80,  152. 
Brooks,  Rev.  Phillips,  82,  83. 
Brotherhood  of  Andrew  and   Philip, 

151. 
Brown,  Rev.  Charles,  127. 
Bruce,  Mr.  I.,  102. 
Buchanan,  Pres.  James,  112,  117. 
Buck,  Dr.  F.  J.,  101. 
Bucks  county,  29. 
Burial  lot,  24,  33. 
Burtis,  Aaron  H.,  53,  97. 

Campbell,  Mr.  S.,  102. 

Campbell,  President  W.  H.,  42. 

Camperduin,  11. 

Chains  across  streets,  3-5. 

Chambers,  John,  advertising  sermons, 
81  ;  ancestry,  9  ;  in  Baltimore,  17- 
23  ;  birth,  9 ;  boyhood,  14-17 ; 
Broad  Street  Church,  61,  62  ;  call, 
28-33  ;  calls,  124  ;  children,  45  ; 
clothes,    92,   93  ;    communion,    73  ; 


of  Divinity,  103  ;  education,  19-23  ; 
emotions,  65  ;  Europe  visited,  59  ; 
fiftieth  jubilee  anniversary,  102  ; 
finances,  61,  123  ;  first  communion 
and  baptism,  41  ;  fortieth  anniver- 
sary, 123  ;  funerals,  55  ;  grand- 
children, 46  ;  growth  in  character, 

122  ;  health,  123  ;  heretic,  30 ;  hymn 
reading,  91, 109;  illness,  130, 131;  in- 
fancy, 11  ;  jubilee  anniversary,  102  ; 
last  words,  142  ;  licensed,  23  ;  mar- 
riage, 44,  66 ;  marrying  couples, 
97  ;  ordaining  of  ministers,  40 ; 
ordination  at  New  Haven,  38-41  ; 
pastor,  no,  126;  peacemaker,  16, 
chapter  xiii ;  personal  appearance, 
7  ;  physique,  7,  60  ;  platform,  91, 
92  ;  politics,  17,  63,  64 ;  prayer 
meetings,  77-79,  IIQ ;  preaching, 
99,  100  ;  Presbytery,  30,  31  ;  pulpit 
manner,  90,  91  ;  memorial  churches, 
x47-i53 ;  punctuality,  32  ;  resi- 
dences, 50  ;  rejected  of  Presbytery, 
31,    34;    Sabbath,    55,    56;    salary, 

123  ;  sermonizing,  81  ;  sermons 
printed,  57,  113;  sermon  subjects, 
88-90  ;  sorrows,  107-108  ;  Sunday 
School,  46,  96 ;  teachers,  19-23  ; 
temperance,  15  ;  theatre,  48-50 ; 
theology,  20,  23,  43,  47  ;  tomb,  145  ; 
visits  Ohio,  14;  voice,  124;  wit, 
123-125;  wartime,  112-120. 

Chambers,  J.  M.  Duncan,  45,  46,  66, 

120. 
Chambers,  Martha,  66,  67,  120. 
Chambers,  Matilda,  103,  143. 
Chambers,  William,  9-15. 
Chamber s-Wy lie   Memorial   Church, 

6,  83,  152,  153. 
China,  76. 

Church  of  the  Love  of  God,  147-150. 
Church  on  13th  Street,  4,  5,  25,  26. 
Church  on  Broad  Street,  60-62. 
Church  government,  94. 
Concert  Hall,  69. 


drinking  customs,  14-16,  51  ;  Doctor  !  Congregational  Church,  52,  115,  137. 

157 


INDEX. 


Congregational  council,  40. 
Coyle,  Mr.  R.  M.,  147. 
Crowell,  Rev.  James.  109. 
Curtin,  Governor,  119. 
Cuyler,  Rev.  T.,  55. 
Cyclopedia  of  Temperance,  83. 

Dexter,  Rev.  Franklin,  38. 
Dill,  Mr.  T.  P.,  100. 
Drummond,  Professor,  126. 
Dudleian  lecture,  40. 
Duelling,  58. 
Duncan  Margaret,  25,  26. 
Duncan,  Rev.  John  Mason,  19-21,  27, 
34- 

Elders,  40,  53. 

Ely,  Rev.  Dr.  Stiles,  28,  31. 

Evans,  Mr.  J.,  102. 

Fashions,  92,  93,  105. 
Fisher,  Prof.  W.  G.,  122,  141. 
Flag  on  church,  116. 
Friends,  Society  of,  131. 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  114. 
Funerals,  51,  55. 

Garrison,  Wm.  Lloyd,  117. 

Gashmu,  124. 

General  Assembly,  44. 

Gettysburg,  118. 

Gray,  Rev.  James,  19,  21,  22,  27. 

Griffis,  Capt.  John  L.,  85. 

Griffiths,  Captain,  118. 

Hackett,  Mr.  James,  46. 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  106. 

Hall,  Wilfrid,  27. 

Hartranft,  Rev.  P.  D.,  37. 

Hatfield,  Rev.  Dr.  141. 

Hibbert,  Mr.  Thomas,  55,  94. 

Higher  Criticism,  37,  99,  122. 

Hinckley,  Mr.  R.  H.,  53,  101,  147. 

Hoyt,  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  A.,  152,  153. 

Huldah,  4. 

Hunter,  Rev.  A.B.,  101. 

Hunter,  Mr.  John  C,  100,  151. 

Hymns,  16,  109,  no. 

Ireland,  8,  10. 

Irvine,  Rev.  Thomas,  127. 


Japan,  16,  76,  130. 

Johnson,  Rev.  Dr.  Herrick,   137,  138. 

Johnson,  Mr.  J.  B.,  102. 

Kelley,  Rev.  Samuel  P.,  140. 

Lawyer,  Mr.  E.  S.,  100. 
Ledger,  Public,  81,  82,  85,  88,  121. 
Lee,  Rev.  Dr.  E.  Trumbull,  153. 
Leslie,  Mr.  Henry,  102. 
Levy,  Rev.  Edgar,  129. 
Leyburn,  Rev.  Dr.,  122,  145. 
Luther,  Robert,  40,  53,  95. 
Luther,    Rev.   Robert   Maurice,    95, 
124-127. 

McHenry  family,  44.  45. 

McNeille,  Rev.  R.  G.  S.,  140. 

March,  Rev.  Daniel,  122. 

Marrott,  Mr.  C.  D.,  102. 

Mary,  63. 

McLeod,  Rev.  Dr.,  145. 

Milner,  Rev.  Dr.  Duncan  C,  120,  137. 

Minton,  Rev.  Henry  C,  153. 

Mitchell,  Dr.  S.  Weir,  130,  131. 

Money  raising,  61. 

Moody,  Mr. ,  90. 

Mount  Pleasant,  13,  100. 

Munger,  Rev.  T.  T.,  38. 

Myers,  Mr.  Henry,  102. 

Nagle,  Mr.  G.  F.,  102. 

Neill,  Rev.,  122. 

Newland,  Francis,  97,  98,  141. 

Newton,  Rev.  Dr.  Richard,  152. 

Newton,  Pa.,  28. 

North  American  building,  1-3. 

Ohio,  12-16. 

Otts,  Rev.  J.  M.  B.,  143. 

Paine,  Thomas,  85,  86. 
Painter,  Mr.  Charles,  99. 
Patterson,  Rev.  Wm.,  147. 
Penn,  Wm.,  1. 
Pennock,  architects,  153. 
Philadelphia  in  old  time,  5,  24,  49. 
Plumer,  Rev.  Wm.,  119,  122,  141. 
Post  with  chain,  3,  4. 
Prayer  meetings,  27,  54,  55,  141. 
Presbyterian  encyclopedia,  34. 
Presbytery  of  Baltimore,  34. 


158 


INDEX. 


Presbytery  of  Philadelphia,  23,  28. 

Princeton,  19. 

Pulpit,  70,  71. 

Pulpit,  power  of,  2. 

Purdy,  Mr.  Harrison,  101,  102. 

Reed,  Mr.  Moses,  33. 
Renan's  Life  of  Jesus,  87. 
Revivalists,  36,  63. 
Ross,  Miss  Anna,  33,  113. 
Rutledge  Church,  6,  152. 

Sabbath-keeping,  3,  4,  55-57. 

Sacraments,  73,  74. 

St.  Paul's  Pres.  Church,  151. 

Schenck,  Rev.  Dr.,  121. 

Scotch-Irish,  8. 

Scott  Legion,  117. 

Scott's  soldiers,  112. 

Scripture  references,  5. 

Sexton,  104. 

Sheppard,  Joseph  B.,  95,  96,  113. 

Sheppard,  Rev.  T.  J.,  140. 

Skinner,  Rev.  Harvey,  35. 

Smith,  Mr.  William,  102. 

Snyder,  Mr.  J.  M.,  102. 

Socrates,  84. 

Somers,  Mr.  A.,  102. 

Song  of  Songs,  24,  44. 

Steinmetz,  Daniel,  98,  113. 

Stewartstown,  9,  12. 

Stockton,  Rev.  William  R.,  141. 

St.  Paul's  Pres.  Church,  6. 

Sullivan's  Expedition  of  1779,  9,  17. 

Sunday  Despatch,  86. 

Sunday  School,  46,  56,  140. 

Supplee,  Mr.  C.  D.,  102. 

Synods,  20. 

Talmage,  Rev.  T.  D.,  82,  120,  121. 
Taylor,  Rev.  N.  W.,  36. 
Temperance,  51-54. 
Theological  Seminaries,  19. 
Theology,  20-22. 
Thirteenth  Street,  35,  46. 


Thirteenth  Street  Church,  23,  24. 
Thompson,  Rev.  Dr.  John,  148. 
Tone,  T.  Wolf,  10. 
Tracy,  Mr.  E.,  102. 
Trumbull,  Dr.  Henry  Clay,  65. 
Tyler,  Rev.  Bennett,  37. 

Union  Theological  Seminary,  129. 
United  Irishmen,  10,  11,  22. 
Universalism,  58. 

Van  Deurs,  Dr.  George,  147. 
Vaux,  Richard,  60. 
Vicksburg,  119. 
Village,  The,  46. 

Walton,  Rudolph  S.,  70,  79,  98,  99, 

113,  146,  151. 
Wanamaker,  John,  78,  80,  147,  148. 
War,  Civil,  Chapter  XIII. 
War,  Mexican,  112. 
War  of  1812,  17. 
Washington's  Birthday,  53. 
Weaver,  Mr.  William,  104. 
Weddings,  105. 
Wentz,  Miss  K.,  150. 
West,  Mr.  Edwin,  102. 
Westminster  symbols,  30,  31,  42,  130. 
Westwood,  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  C.,  143. 
Whitaker,  Mr.,  144. 
Whitefield,  65. 
Whittier  quoted,  107,  155. 
Wilder,  Rev.,  76. 
Willetts,  Rev.  Dr.  A.  A.,  54. 
Williams,  Mr.  W.  S.,  102. 
Wilson,  Rev.  James  P.,  35. 
Women  of  First  Independent  Church, 

104. 
Wylie,  Rev.  S.  B.,  10,  22. 

Yard,  Mr.  John,  95,  113. 
Young,  Mr.  G.  I.,  102. 
Young  Ladies'  Association,  96. 
Youths'  Temperance  Society,  53. 


159 


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